The Puffer Forum

Hi, I've had a puffer since about April hes about 1.5 inches pretty much exactly the same as i got him. I feed him frozen blood worms and brine shrimp once a day alternating daily. His belly stays round for about 4 hrs then gets streamline never indented . I also feed him some small snails(gonna run out soon) and ghost shrimp every once in a while. (Never actually seen him eat the ghost shrimp but they seem to dissapear after 2 weeks) Hes' in a 20 gal H with 1.004 marine salt. The 5 BBG's have grown almost half his size already so, I cant figure out why he isn't growing. I've seen some full grown figure 8's the LFS and they were about 3 or 4 inches and they said they were about a year old. I'm almost thinking of getting another puffer or fish because tanks looks so bare with 1 puffer in the 20 gal!

Whats the water change schedule like? I've found water changes are very important to growth rate.

Usally once a week to every week and a half 50% change. When I change the water I useally get a little bit of ammonia and nitrites thats show and get cycleed through in about a day or less. Tap water tests at 7ppm for nitrates so its usally always around 20pmm no matter how much I change it.

7ppm of NO3 from the tap... that may be something to look into. Also you should never get ammonia and nitrite spikes from water changes. I know if a fish is sensitive those spikes can be pretty bad. I can't speak about F8's and barely know anything about puffers but those things stick out as points of concern.

Does your tap have the ammaonia and nitrite in it not just NO3 maybe that is causing problems?

Water parameters
Tank:
Ammonia 0 or .10 ppm
Nitrites 0 pmm
PH 8.0 or 7.9
Nitrates 20 or 30 ppm
Tap:
Ammonia 1.0 pmm
Nitrites 0 pmm
PH 7.4
Nitrates honestly 15 or 20 ppm!!

Well, your main problem seems to be that the ammonia and nitrite spike after a water change. Change the water every week, at least 50%. Also, the F8 alone needs 20g. Think about getting a 25-30 gallon tank because the bbgs do add extra bio-load. Nitrates are probably fine even at 20. Most try to keep at 20 or less. Mine stays around 40, and mine are fine, though I am going to get nitrate removing filter media.

Anyway, don't add any more fish to this tank; it's already overstocked. You probably can get away with keeping them in that tank as long as you keep up with water changes. Change 50% twice a week even.

Oh, yeah, and you need to add more nutritious food to his diet. Brine shrimp have practically no nutritional value. Bloodworms, mysis shrimp, clams, mussels, squid are all good for him. If you buy a 1 pound bag of uncooked, shell-on shrimp from the grocery store it will last you forever! Get the smaller shrimp as 1 shrimp will last several feedings. Live snails are great as are live shrimp. I keep a tank just to breed snails and cherry shrimp. I also try to make sure that the shrimp has just eaten before I feed him to my F8. That helps add extra nutrients.

With your tap water having 1ppm of ammonia that is most likely the culprit. I don't think that is healthy for you to be consuming either. You need to get the ammonia out of the water before you put it in the tank or you will always be shocking your fish when you do a water change.

I use Aqua Safe water conditioner. Will that neutralize ammonia? (but still show up on tests)?

I found this online. This is nice to know... "Because Ammonia is unregulated in tap water, no violations are recorded in EPA's violations database, the Safe Drinking Water Information System. Under the federal tap water law, water suppliers are not required to routinely test for Ammonia, and any level is legal in tap water" Man I wish we had well water.

may be and get expensive but what about buying distilled water from the store

I believe distilled water is basically the same as RO water, so it should be fine as long as you add a little tap water or a mineral solution to put the necessary minerals, electrolytes, etc back into the water.