The Puffer Forum

I don't know what happened! Last night my fig 8 was fine and this morning he was dead. I had cycled the tank using gravel and the same filter as an established tank and got reading of no ammonia or nitrite and a nitrate level of 10 when I put him in. This morning after finding him dead, I expected that there was an ammonia spike and took levels.
They read:
ammonia-0
nitrite-0
nitrate-0 why would this be zero?

Also, the pH was high- 7.6+ (My kit doesn't go higher than 7.6, and the test water was very blue)
Temp 80 degrees

What went wrong?

How long have you had your puffer. Some times it's just the way they were caught. Not always something we did wrong but all the things that happened before we got them.

I got him on Tuesday.

Isn't it odd that all readings are now 0?

Do you have any plants in the tank? That would explain it.
On my planted tank 99% of the time my readings are always 0.

No live plants, just plastic.

What test kit are you using? With many liquid tests you have to really bang around the nitrate test to get it all to dissolve correctly.

I have a 90g African Cichlid tank that read the same parameters as yours for months. No one on Cichlid Forum had any idea either. The only thing I could think of on my own was maybe it was because we have well water and I use water from our sink which is filtered by reverse osmosis (VERY filtered water!!). Is your water similar to mine? But just to let you know, it never affected any of my fish. I really don't think it would have had anything to do with your fishes death. I wouldn't worry too much about your nitrates being 0. Mine just simply corrected itself over time.

The only thing I could think of is it your tank wasn't completely cycled, or something, but you would have SOME readings after that, so I guess that's kinda moot. Sometimes, as edmlfc1 said, it's not something you did. Sorry to hear about your loss.

My only other thought was maybe there wasn't enough oxygen? What kind of filter do you have, and what size of tank? Generally, though, this wouldn't kill them in one night...


(pH is probably 8.0 or 8.2, as the marine salt will likely buffer the water to that level on its own, which is a good thing).

The tank is a 20 gallon tall with a Whisper power filter and aerator. I want to try some Tetra Safe Start of Turbo start, but i'm worried about the health of a figure 8 going in with the cycler. Is it safe for them, even though they are so sensitive?

Also, there is not salt in the tank yet. The lfs where I got the fig 8 from has them in freshwater, so I was waiting a bit to begin adding the salt. Could the high Ph level be a problem?

The only way pH would have been a problem is if you didn't acclimate him before putting him in the tank. Sometimes parameter shocks can kill a fish in 24 hours. It's hard being tossed from one environment to the next.