The Puffer Forum

help me please

ok...wow..well, very VERY simply....fish produce waste (amonia) which a certain type of bacteria eats, and produces it's own waste (nitrIte) and another type of bacteria eats nitrIte and produces another waste (nitrAte). Ammonia and NitrItes are highly toxic to fish, and in an established aquarium should always read 0. Nitrate is less toxic, and should be kept as low as possible..>20. You can test these things by buying test kits at your local fish store (LFS). If your tank isn't 'cycled' (the term we use when all these things good bacteria are built up) you can by Bio-Spira to 'instant' cycle your tank....did that help at all? Anyone else care to chime in??

pH is a measure of acidity or alkalinity. We're usually dealing with the mid-range of the 0-14 scale. 7 is neutral; 6 is 10 times more acidic than 7, 5 is 100 times more acidic than 7 - it is logarithmic. Puffers, in general, like stable, slightly alkaline water. Mine stays 8.2 in the tanks.

The Nitrogen Cycle:
1. fish/plants go in tank.
2. fish eats some food, lets some rot at the bottom. Parts of plants die off.
3. fish produce waste products, plant and food remains start to rot.
uneaten food, dead plant matter and waste form toxic ammonia.
4. toxic ammonia burns fish's gills, eyes, fins, skin, etc. (ammonia 8. burns).
5. ammonia devouring bacteria that occur naturally all around us colonize in the tank and begin feeding on the ammonia, and multiplying.
6. ammonia eating bacteria also has to relieve themselves, and its waste is what we call nitrItes. Nitrites are toxic to fish as well (it decreases oxygen levels in the fish's blood, causing the fish to suffocate).
7. other naturally occurring bacteria arrive and devour the nitrItes and multiply.
8. nitrIte eating bacteria also has to relieve themselves, and its waste is what we call nitrAtes.
9. live plants remove parts of this final product of the nitrogen cycle. Not enough to keep nitrAte levels at an acceptable level, so we perform weekly water changes to get rid of the rest of the nitrAtes.

For more info check our Library.

Pufferpunk wrote:The Nitrogen Cycle:
1. fish/plants go in tank.
2. fish eats some food, lets some rot at the bottom. Parts of plants die off.
3. fish produce waste products, plant and food remains start to rot.
uneaten food, dead plant matter and waste form toxic ammonia.
4. toxic ammonia burns fish's gills, eyes, fins, skin, etc. (ammonia 8. burns).
5. ammonia devouring bacteria that occur naturally all around us colonize in the tank and begin feeding on the ammonia, and multiplying.
6. ammonia eating bacteria also has to relieve themselves, and its waste is what we call nitrItes. Nitrites are toxic to fish as well (it decreases oxygen levels in the fish's blood, causing the fish to suffocate).
7. other naturally occurring bacteria arrive and devour the nitrItes and multiply.
8. nitrIte eating bacteria also has to relieve themselves, and its waste is what we call nitrAtes.
9. live plants remove parts of this final product of the nitrogen cycle. Not enough to keep nitrAte levels at an acceptable level, so we perform weekly water changes to get rid of the rest of the nitrAtes.

For more info check our Library.

very useful info thanks.

I do agree with PP's scenario, but want to expand it by empasizing that nitrate is only one of the many waste products that we do water changes to remove. It just happens to be the one where the precursors are highly toxic and where the final product is easily measured by hobby kits, so we use it as a general indicator of pollution buildup in our tanks.

lisalisa wrote:ok...wow..well, very VERY simply....fish produce waste (amonia) which a certain type of bacteria eats, and produces it's own waste (nitrIte) and another type of bacteria eats nitrIte and produces another waste (nitrAte). Ammonia and NitrItes are highly toxic to fish, and in an established aquarium should always read 0. Nitrate is less toxic, and should be kept as low as possible..>20. You can test these things by buying test kits at your local fish store (LFS). If your tank isn't 'cycled' (the term we use when all these things good bacteria are built up) you can by Bio-Spira to 'instant' cycle your tank....did that help at all? Anyone else care to chime in??

I think that is a typo.AM I right ? should say nitrate <20

opps!! thanks for catching that Rocker!

For any potential puffer purchasers perusing this post (!):

Test kits for these are, in my opinion, the single best thing you can own when setting up a new tank for the first time. When you buy a new tank, filter, heater, substrate... add these tests into the cart while you're at it.

I still can't understand why so many pet stores allow first-time fishkepers to leave the stores without them.

I don't know the cultures in the rest of the world, but in the USA, trying to sell novices testing materials and convincing them to use such is a losing battle. It is somewhat related to the concept of adequate tank size, another non-starter. Only a tiny percentage of the people who set up tanks ever try to lean anything about them. Most operate them poorly for some period, store the failed tank for a period, then dump it during a garage sale.

This hobby has a very high recruitment rate, and a tiny retention rate. We are as nation a group who will not read the directions and have little or no desire, or more likely an adversion, to learning things not related to our income.

Those of use on sites such as this are the folk in that tiny minority of those who start tanks.

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