The Puffer Forum

OK The tank is 25 gallons, it has been set up for 6 weeks with 8 zebra danios, after about two weeks the amonia was zero, the nitrite was zero, and the nitrate was 10ppm. It is fully fresh water right now because the LFS gets them from a supplier that ships them in fresh. Last thursday I got two F8's, took the danios out and acclimatized the puffers slowly as the ph in my tank is about 7.8 and the water they were in was about 7.2. I added water to the bag slowly over about 4 hours before releasing them in the tank. I was feeding them frozen blood worms and offered them some ramshorn snails but they did not eat them. I did give them a few live mosquito larve one day which they LOVED. At first everything was fine, both doing well, active, eating, then the smaller of the two died. I had done a small water change prior to the first one dying. I had it in the tank for about 48 hours. I tested the water and the amonia was up to about .25 I did another small water change at that time. I added cycle at the time as well. The other one looked fine at that time, eating pooping, checking out all of the tank. I did a 50% water change on Saturday night and the other was dead on Sunday morning. I tested the water and the amonia was up to .25 again! I have done THREE 75% water changes since Sunday and I cannot get the amonia down. Last night I took the sponge filter form my community tank that is , zero am, zero nitrite, and 10 nitrate and sqeezed it into the filter. I did another 75% water change today and the damn thing is still at 25ppm. My problem is that my LFS was really great and is replacing them and the called today to tell me they had been shipped and would be in in the morning...Crap...am I going to kill these two as well? Any ideas?

Thanks...I am a bit frantic about what to do!

Jan

Are you using tap water? check it and see what it reads.
The other possibility is the F8's bioload was a lot more than the danio's (not only from poo, but wasted food as well), causing a spike.
Media or bacteria from another tank should have been plenty to cycle it.

I get the feeling your problem is with your tap water though.

I will test the tap water right now!

Jan

Hmmmm tested my tap water and it seemed fine. The thing I forgot to tell you that about two days after I got them I started to raise the salinity. I added three tablespoons to the 25g tank. I put the salt into water in a bucket and let an airstone run in it overnight. Also it seems to me that both fish died after a water change. I try to be careful when adding the water not to stir ip the tank, but maybe I am being to rough when I add the water??? I wish I knew what was going wrong

Jan

Maybe you raised the salinity on them too fast and they were also going through some cycling as you mentioned earlier? not sure about the salinity thing though as i dont know much about brackish. next time you could try to find fish that have equivalent bioload as the F8 and then they wont have to go through a mini cycle. I'm thinking since u added salt water, that could kill off the freshwater beneficial bacteria, therefore making your tank cycle again. Nonetheless im sorry for your loss and good luck next time

You should really pick up a hydrometer or refractometer (much better) to read the Salinity and Specific Gravity. If you raise the SG more than .002 a week, you kill the bacteria in there. I don't think 3 Tbs would change it that much though. Did you match the temperature as well?

If it wasn't the tap, then the only reason there would be ammonia or nitrite would be if it wasn't cycled or going through a minicycle from the increased bioload. I suspect you had a minicycle and the ammonia killed them. you will need to feed the bacteria if there's no fish in there.
BTW, Sorry for your loss.

Three tablespoons in 25 gallons would barely move the salinity so I don't think that's the problem.

Did you use a dechlorinator when you did the water change? Make sure the temperature matched?

Yes I did dechlorinate...and the water was within a couple of degrees...how close does the temp have to be??? Does it have to be exact?

Nope, that should be fine.

It almost sounds like something got into your tank with the water change.. was the bucket used for anything else like washing a floor, etc?

ARRRRGGGGHHHHH I am ready to give up!!!! The LFS replaced the figure 8's I lost, they got in GSP's and said they thought they were f8's I have been feeding the bio filter for a week while waiting for them to come in... I tested the water before I went and got them, the amonia test tube showed under .25 but above zero. I did a 50 percent water change before leaving for the fish store. I treated the water for chlorine. i have a problem with a slight amount of Amonia in my tapwater. I have argonite as substrate...the PH seems high, about 8.4. I read somewhere that if the PH is over 8 it makes the amonia especially poisonous. Should I lower the PH and do I have to worry about the bio filter when I do this...what is the best way to do it? The tank has a few live plants, java fern and Val and an aquatic lily...would that be the problem? Oh ya and how would I know if they have worms, they sometimes have a little stringy like poop coming out of their anus. I am getting really discouraged...I wish I knew what I am doing wrong! Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Is the stringy stuff white? That would be worms. Other symptoms include a lack of appetite, a sunken belly, and/or a belly flattening very quicly (under half an hour or so) after feeding.

Don't worry about pH. Brackish fish will prefer a higher pH anyway, and honestly, most fish don't seem to care about pH at all. Argonite is usually a marine substrate (I think) and it buffers pH and is used to maintain higher levels. If you tried to lower it, the argonite would just bounce it back up. While most fish don't care what the pH is, they do like whatever level it is to be steady. A swing can kill them.

I don't think that the plants are the problem, unless they're dying and rotting.

Does your dechlorinator also take care of chloramines? If you have ammonia in your water, you almost certainly have chloramines (unless you have well water). Water companies have recently (past few years) started adding a combination of chloramines and ammonia to water. These create chlorine, but they do it slowly. This is so that when the chlorine that they added dissapates after a day or two, there's more forming. This keeps the water sanitary longer.

Do you vaccuum the substrate? Try giving it a thorough vaccuum to find any food or poo that could be causing the ammonia spike.

We have an old well here on my property. I still use well water in the barn...maybe I should get my water from there!!! I think I will try that! The other one seems fine so far...he is eating well, I gave him a crushed snail as he did not seem to know what to do with the whole one, I fed him some frozen blood worms, which he seemed so-so about. I went out and found some mosquito larvea which he loved (not all at once I gave him the snail on day one, the blood worm day two and the mosquito larvae this am). I am being careful about not overfeeding him. So...so far so good with the remaining little fellow. hopefully he won't croak too...as I find it really upsetting. I am going to the LFS store now as I think the snails I have are too big for him ...I see a new crop of eggs in my five gallon snail tank, so I should havce some smaller ones soon, but for now , I will get some small ones from the LFS. Anyway, thanks for hte advice...I will keep you posted on the outcome...

Jan

Puffers have big appetites. Feed them more than other fish - until their tummies are visibly rounded, and they're about 1/3 "taller." Of course, don't overfeed, either - just letting you know, as I was pretty surprised when I first found that out. As for the mosquito larvae, just make sure that the water they're in is free of pollutants - you could even set up a spot with water you know is clean and try to get them to breed there. (Just make sure to kill any that you don't use!)

If it's harder to get water out of the barn, don't worry about it, unless you know that your dechlorinator doesn't handle chloramines. Look at the bottle, and check with your water company if it doesn't. What brand are you using?

I set up a bucket of water to grow the larvae...and I wash them in fresh water before I feed them. He does not seem to be eating much. I have given him snails about the size of hie eye and he may pick at them twice and then ignores them...so I crushed one and he picked at it a couple of times and left it. I tried him on some larvae..he ate maybe two of the ten I gave him and left the rest. I tried frozen blood worms and he picked at those but did not seem to interested. I have seen him poop a couple of times, (brown not white) so I feel he must be eating something???? He seems active, alert, and curious...

I am using aqua plus for the water treatment. I noticed when I read the label again that it takes twice the dose to deal with chloramines, than it does to deal with straight chlorine, so maybe I was not using enough? I will double the dose for the next water change. his colour seems fine, the top of his head is a really cool metallic green colour and the rest of him looks healthy as well....

Sounds good. The double dose ought to help.