The Puffer Forum

So those filters from your friend will be coming off of established tanks with fish in there now?

I may have missed this but what kind of puffer is this? Definitely need to get some established filter media in there, PufferPunk is right your tank isn't cycled right now. I hate when LFS's give you the "it's fine" answer, makes you think the water is perfect. For them fine could be showing small amounts of ammonia and nitrite and that's ok to them. For puffers you really need to have no ammonia or nitrites, so their fine may be your terrible...

Yep, anything but zero is dangerous for puffers. Actually, it's dangerous for any fish, but it's super-dangerous for puffers and their delicate skin.

Pufferpunk wrote:So those filters from your friend will be coming off of established tanks with fish in there now?

yes he has a tank that's been running forever!

Ok I'm really aggreeing that these strips are junk! the 0 nitrite reading is white on the paper guide that comes with it. When I did my test again this morning is a light light beige on the stick. but there is no light beige square on the paper at all! the .5 is light pink...I will note that my puffer is very active this morning. Swimming up and down the tank and being very interactive. I'm sure the water change made him feel much better. Wow you guys have helped out so much. I'd like to thank you again!

WC always make fish feel better, even in a healthy tank!

I'm really glad to hear that he's doing better.

Back from the pet shop, She checked my ammonia-0 nitrite-0 nitrate-0 I guess everything is fine now. She noted that my PH was high but I don't think I can lower it without hurting the fish..thanks again

Don't worry about pH. I keep my DPs in 8.2-8.4, even though they come from slightly acidic water, and they couldn't care less.

Get those liquid kits and keep an eye on the tank. The water changes eliminated the ammonia and nitrite, but that tank was empty for a week and was not fed an ammonia source, which starved your nitrifying bacteria. I don't think you're out of the woods yet.

If you are showing no nitrate, I'd be worried that the tank isn't cycled. An established biological bed will be releasing some nitrate.

With the strips I have had problems with false-positive tests before. So there is also the chance that your tank has been fine all along and the testing kit is to blame - all the more reason to get a proper one. I've had testing kits report nitrite/ammonia/nitrate in the water and got worried but when I test clean tap water and still get readings you know something is amiss and its time for a new kit, after I got the proper kit my readings were all normal.

Pufferpunk wrote:If you are showing no nitrate, I'd be worried that the tank isn't cycled. An established biological bed will be releasing some nitrate.

+1 to this. I don't think you are over your troubles yet. The numbers you LFS gave you are indicative of a uncycled tank and by keeping fish in there you are heading right back to where you started. If you can get some Dr. Tims or some used filter media from a friend with a well established tank to do an instant cycle.