The Puffer Forum

OUr tank has gotten all of a sudden really cloudy. (Salt water tank)WE change the water and add salt but it gets cloudy once again.
My husband recently bought a new filter for our freshwater tank and moved it's old filter to the puffer tank. The filter was changed and the ammonia rocks were also changed and rinced. We change the water on average once a week in varying percentages.

It's a 26 gallon tank.

Ammonia 0
pH 7.5-8.0
Kh 120-180
general hardness 180
salinity: 1.014

Inhabitants: 1 spotted puffer, one sandsifting starfish, a few hermit crabs, 4-5 ghost shrimp (that have apparently become our puffers friend because he doesn't eat them. But he does eat other stuff). a couple of snails. There are no plants in our tank. We have three live rock in the tank.

We feed the fish every 2-3 days an alternating diet of dried shrimp, blood worms, mysis shrimp, and krill.

Help! WE don't know what to do!! We've had this tank over a year!

Your SG isn't SW, it's high BW & way too low to support true SW life, like that starfish, hermits or live rock. Inverts are VERY sensitive to inproper parameters. Please also post your nitrite & nitrate.

Also remove the ammo rocks, they are preventing the ammonia that needs to feed your biological fitration. It's messing with the cycle.

Is the pH 7.5 or 8? That's a HUGE fluctuation. Same with the KH--which is it 120 or 180? Aim for 180.

If that puffer is an adult, then that tank is too small for him. He will eventually eat the hermits.

No3- 0.2
No2- 2.5

You suggest removing ammonia rocks. is that forever or just until the tank cycles? OUr starfish is doing fine.

That's forever. Your tank won't cycle with them & won't need them once it's cycled. The starfish is fine--for now... Inverts need SW, not BW. Your liverock will continue to die off too.

myhusband just said we don't have live rock. I was mistaken.

What should the pH be?

Whether the pH is 7.5, 8.0 or in between isn't nearly as important as the pH being stable. A stable pH reading anywhere in that range should be just fine

Likely, the ammo chips are causing your cloudiness--this is especially true if what you are seeing is a white, milky type of of cloudiness. The ammo-chips need to be rinsed thoroughly before being used, and I really mean thoroughly. In one of those smaller boxes of ammo-chips that you can buy for roughly five dollars, you'll need to rinse the chips roughly 15-20 times thoroughly. For whatever reason, these rocks are loaded with some type of residue that just soils water with a milky stain.

I've used them in an 80 gallon cichlid tank only to find myself having major regrets. It consequently led me to do large water changes until I could isolate the problem; my cichlids suffered because of my own carelessness.

I would recommend not using the product. It's supposedly an alternative method of biological filtration, but it's much easier and likely more safer to just let your tank cycle properly and do weekly water changes as needed.

Ammo rocks are only for FW an in my SW tank the ph is 8.2. Also have you had the SW animals for over a year too?