The Puffer Forum

nitrite 0
nitrate 0
ammonia just above 0

i just returned from two weeks of training in the army and had my bro feed my gsps, and fig 8's while i was gone. got home yesterday and did an immediate water change. the water was a little cloudy. after the 50% waterchange my gsps had dark lines across thier sides and the bellies are still white. tried feeding them bloodworms but nothing touched them. so decided to wait overnight to see what the outcome was. still the same this mornig so i did a 70% waterchange and still the same. treated with prime. my tap water has high ammonia levels straight from the faucet but when its treated its normally pretty good. i've never had a problem this bad before. all my fish are just laying on the bottom of the tank hardly moving. one of my gsp's was just floating around in the current of the tank and looked dead except for his eyes moving back and forth. he didnt even move when i touced him. any suggestions???

sounds like they've been overfed and the tank has suffered an ammonia spike. Only thing you can do is more huge water changes and hope they pull through...

maybe getting some melafix from LFS may help, but it depends how far gone they are.

Got an update?

its still the same. after water changes they get sick and about the time they start looking healthy again its time for another waterchange and start the process all over. i thought it was maybe something in my tap water but the brackish tank is the only one thats having any sort of reaction. my 29 gal marine tank with my valentini puffer is thriving (other than my crabs and snails that hes slowly picking off) and so is my freshwater community tank. i'm freakin baffled

Weird! Are any of your water-conditioning products or your salt... expired? Idk if they can even do that... But it's only affecting the GSP tank... That's really weird. You would think that the water changes would help, and that's what's got me stumped. What are your parameters now? Still got any ammonia?

If you have tap-water issues, have you tried using RO water? all you'd have to add then is the salt, no conditioners or anything at all, got to be worth a try.
The only other thing I can think of is... how are you measuring your salt? Refractometer or hydrometer? or just going by cup measurements?
Is it possible it has been a little in-accurate and you killed your bacteria by swinging the SG by more than 0.002 at a time? just a thought... as that would cause your tank to cycle again giving you ammonia issues

Maybe your tap water's PH is really high/low? Idk if PH can do that to your fish, but my tap water is about an 8.4, so I'm going to have to medd with that a lot before I get my fish. Cetain substrate and some decor can change it, given a little time. So if yours is really off, and you have substrate/decor like that, maybe that could be it?

well its been a while since i've updated my situation. its been about two weeks since i did a waterchange becuase i was in a pretty bad car accident and have been too stiff and sore to do much of anything but play xbox. but i'm doing it today and i'm trying something different. i'm pulling all my decor out and slowly putting it back in to see if maybe something with one of those is causing my problem. if that doesnt do anything i'm going to have to maybe switch out my substrate? i have no idea. i'm testing my ph finally now that i have a good test for it. whats a normal ph for gsps?

7.0 or higher.
Your zero nitrate is a sign of an uncycled tank, and your ammonia levels could be causing your little puffer problems. I'd suggest buying RO water from a LFS and seeing how your fish do after a w/c with that