The Puffer Forum

Shes an abei puffer, the tank is about 5 months old now, I try to keep it very clean because shes incredibly messy and greedy - its like looking after a baby more than a fish, shes so attention seeking (but my precious girl too - Im sure you can sympathise with that) so I try to hoover every time shes eaten and get the poo nuggets out..... Secondly she has snails/squid/fish/earthworms - shes not fussy, I just try and rotate her diet to keep it varied. Thank you though, Obviously its not clean enough for my girl.

Awww... she sounds very loved!

5 months is pretty good. Seeing nematodes in a fairly new tank isn't unusual by any stretch of the imagination.

I personally believe the fact that you CAN see them is a good thing. It means that the tank is maturing and since they are coming out to feed, the substrate is most likely fairly clean.

I'd just keep doing what you're doing and the issue will pass in time.

Yeah, with the details it doesn't sound like it's from overfeeding.

I have to disagree strongly.

Visible nematodes and/or planaria are not from overfeeding as such, but they definitely are from and a symptom of under cleaning. The tank is definitely polluted with excessive organics.

Any or all pollution is not a healthy situation for fish. Those two inverts are prime example of tanks which may show no other symptoms otherwise, but which are not healthy situations for fish. To me they call for immediate correction.

RTR wrote:I have to disagree strongly.

Visible nematodes and/or planaria are not from overfeeding as such, but they definitely are from and a symptom of under cleaning. The tank is definitely polluted with excessive organics.

Any or all pollution is not a healthy situation for fish. Those two inverts are prime example of tanks which may show no other symptoms otherwise, but which are not healthy situations for fish. To me they call for immediate correction.

+1 definitely signs of some imbalance within the tank that need to be addressed with immediate effect IMO.

RTR you are my teacher and mentor...
This is one of those situations where we will have to agree to disagree....


EVERY tank I have cycled has had this phenomenon. Always with Nematodes. 4~8 weeks cycling.. after than the inverts arrived. Pods, Nematodes, and many other critters. After that they level them selves out.

That is usually at the 3 month interval. It can last for about a month or two before they become unnoticeable. The time line fits if a tad delayed.

If Kadabra (the OP) continues to do the regular water changes and gravel vacs I can't foresee a problem.

[quote="Kadabra"]Shes an abei puffer

Do they have a dark arrow on there heads like the suvattii?

J-P wrote:RTR you are my teacher and mentor...
This is one of those situations where we will have to agree to disagree....


EVERY tank I have cycled has had this phenomenon. Always with Nematodes. 4~8 weeks cycling.. after than the inverts arrived. Pods, Nematodes, and many other critters. After that they level them selves out.

That is usually at the 3 month interval. It can last for about a month or two before they become unnoticeable. The time line fits if a tad delayed.

If Kadabra (the OP) continues to do the regular water changes and gravel vacs I can't foresee a problem.

I don't think I have ever seen these. However I add tanks with filters that have been run on established tanks for good lengths of time, hence starting low stock and with care cycled tanks. Is this perhaps from newly cycled tanks (not saying anyone is doing anything wrong) but said fish is not eating/ digesting all that perhaps a similar fish in a "well established" tank would, thus leaving excess waste for mites to feed on? The last thing I am trying to do is dig at anyone but I have not seen these so I am trying to work it out lol

ahh you're not looking



and the first time I found one:



They are a little hard to see. I used to take a magnifying glass to the tank almost daily while it was cycling. First came the pods then the nematodes.

Immature tanks are not the same as mature/established tanks. Many, many life forms need to strike a balance between food supply and populations. These critters range from microscopic single celled forms and up the phyla chain to barely visible multicellurar forms to readily visible worms and 'pods. Colonization is partly chance, partly intentional (nitrogen cycle bacteria). If both fish and plants are introduced into new tanks.systems, especially from others of the keepers existing tanks/systems, the maturation time will be reduced to minimum. Cycling time should be less than one month, but tank/system maturation time is longer, perhaps as short as 3 months, but more often 6 months to a year or more for muti-tank.refugia systems.

In any immature tank/system, you can expect transient overgrowth of any particular species, including nematodes or planaria. But in well more than 50 years of tank keeping, I have never seen any, repeat any overgrowth of nematodes or planaria on any tank which when lab tested turned out not to have excessive levels of organics/DOC (dissolved organic compounds). There are no effective hobby tests for such pollution, but it is routine in labs. In an immature tank such pollution may be transient and might fade with the maturity of the substrate microscopic and small invert life particularly, but even if untested by the hobbyist, should be considered a high-DOC tank just of the basis of multiple visible nematodes or commonly seen planaria. That is emphatically an unhealthy situation for fish, and if suspected, one which should be corrected. Correction is not challenging, it is just increased upkeep (vacuuming and water changes) until the situation clears. In mature tanks, visible nematodes and /or planaria generally indicate a slacking off on needed upkeep, or excess fish load and/or inappropriate feeding per fish - in other words, uncorrected overcrowding and/or improper feeding. Well-maintained mature tanks just do not show such outbreaks, nor do they show excessive DOC loads.

What you cannot readily test can hurt your fish. I recognized the issue many decades ago when I was a Cichlid nut, it was too common in my fry grow-out tanks. I looked into the issue and found it readily corrected - with better and faster growth of the fry. That also prompted me to work on RFUG rather than conventional flow UG, and to eventually shift to only OE-RFUG for such grow-out tanks. But any substrate can go to high organic loads under similar conditions of high bioloads from fish and over-feeding or inappropriate feeding. Once a substrate has gone high-organic load, it tends to remain such without radical tank changes. I prefer to avoid such problem tanks - I want routine tank upkeep to be as simple and mindless as possible. For me, that is more likely to be done as needed.

HTH

RTR wrote:Immature tanks are not the same as mature/established tanks. Many, many life forms need to strike a balance between food supply and populations. These critters range from microscopic single celled forms and up the phyla chain to barely visible multicellurar forms to readily visible worms and 'pods. Colonization is partly chance, partly intentional (nitrogen cycle bacteria). If both fish and plants are introduced into new tanks.systems, especially from others of the keepers existing tanks/systems, the maturation time will be reduced to minimum. Cycling time should be less than one month, but tank/system maturation time is longer, perhaps as short as 3 months, but more often 6 months to a year or more for muti-tank.refugia systems.

In any immature tank/system, you can expect transient overgrowth of any particular species, including nematodes or planaria. But in well more than 50 years of tank keeping, I have never seen any, repeat any overgrowth of nematodes or planaria on any tank which when lab tested turned out not to have excessive levels of organics/DOC (dissolved organic compounds). There are no effective hobby tests for such pollution, but it is routine in labs. In an immature tank such pollution may be transient and might fade with the maturity of the substrate microscopic and small invert life particularly, but even if untested by the hobbyist, should be considered a high-DOC tank just of the basis of multiple visible nematodes or commonly seen planaria. That is emphatically an unhealthy situation for fish, and if suspected, one which should be corrected. Correction is not challenging, it is just increased upkeep (vacuuming and water changes) until the situation clears. In mature tanks, visible nematodes and /or planaria generally indicate a slacking off on needed upkeep, or excess fish load and/or inappropriate feeding per fish - in other words, uncorrected overcrowding and/or improper feeding. Well-maintained mature tanks just do not show such outbreaks, nor do they show excessive DOC loads.

What you cannot readily test can hurt your fish. I recognized the issue many decades ago when I was a Cichlid nut, it was too common in my fry grow-out tanks. I looked into the issue and found it readily corrected - with better and faster growth of the fry. That also prompted me to work on RFUG rather than conventional flow UG, and to eventually shift to only OE-RFUG for such grow-out tanks. But any substrate can go to high organic loads under similar conditions of high bioloads from fish and over-feeding or inappropriate feeding. Once a substrate has gone high-organic load, it tends to remain such without radical tank changes. I prefer to avoid such problem tanks - I want routine tank upkeep to be as simple and mindless as possible. For me, that is more likely to be done as needed.

HTH

+1 over engineered tank set ups equal hard upkeep , keep it simple , keep it easy keep it clean .

My OE-RFUG provides my lowest and simplest upkeep tanks. A big part of my current tank room rebuild is converting all possible* tanks to OE-RFUG purely to allow me reduced routine work in the tank room. The tanks out in the house are already all converted. I'd rather do more work in tank set-up and less weekly for the rest of my life.My oldest OE-RFUG tanks are ever 20 years old now, with major re-set in that time.

*All display tanks other than large substrate moving catfish. Substrate moving Cichlids I can handle OK as I don't keep taml busters anymore.

Kadabra wrote:Im cleaning out Gabriella, my abei puffer, and have noticed what look like tiny white/neon green little amoeba worms on the front of the glass.... some are stilll... the larger ones are slowly wiggling.... she appears to be fine.... What could they be? I dont think a photo would capture them as they are so small, I change a bucket or two of water once or twice a week (its a 20gal tank).....Help?

Use genchem no planaria , i beleive it works on nematodes to ....

Don't treat symptoms, treat problems. If the excess organics issue is not corrected (the problem), then the symptoms (planaria or nematodes visible in the water column or on the glasses) will return, or others will arise.

That is standard for water quality issues and one of the commonest issues in hobby tanks which are insufficiently partialed for their bioload and or feeding.