The Puffer Forum

I am putting together of must have items in case of a puffer emergency and would welcome all input including opinions of specific products:

Water problems:

- bateria in a bottle - Dr. Tim's, Tetra SafeStart, and/or BioSpira, depending on your salinity
- declorinator
- ammonia and or nitrite remover:
liquid: Prime, a neutralizer. It detoxifies the ammonia and leaves it in a state that the nitrifying bacteria can still use. That way, you don't starve your biofilter.
granular:

Meds:
Prozac for SAPs
Dewormer with Praziquantel
melafix for injuries
Pimafix for fungal infections
epson salt for constipation
Finqel
aquarium salt
broad-spectrum antibiotics (Maracyn, Maracyn 1, and Maracyn 2 would probably be good, plus Triple Sulfa)
Gel-Tek Ultra Cure - dewormer (best on the market)

* Be sure to keep an eye on expiration dates on meds and instant cycling products.

Bigger picture items:

- Backup filter
- backup heater (adjustable between 70 and 90, since so many diseases are partially treated by specific temperatures)
- backup air pump (battery-operated might be good).
- Heat packs, the kind used for shipping fish, in case the power goes out.
- A sponge filter run alongside your regular filter would be good too, when paired with a backup battery-operated air pump.
- hospital tank or spare tank
- test kit

Note: updated to reflect input from the thread, for credit, please refer to the thread.

ammonia and nitrite are removed by the bio filter ... Nitrate by plants, water changes and chemically

Melafix is always handy to have around.

Scratch the ammonia and nitrite remover...Water changes water changes water changes....
Prime for declorinator

Dewormer with Praziquantel
melafix for injuries
Pimafix for fungal infections
epson salt for constipation

Well, to remove ammonia, I'd use Prime, a neutralizer. It detoxifies the ammonia and leaves it in a state that the nitrifying bacteria can still use. That way, you don't starve your biofilter.

Medications - Melafix, Pimafix, aquarium salt, broad-spectrum antibiotics (Maracyn, Maracyn 1, and Maracyn 2 would probably be good, plus Triple Sulfa), and Finqel.

Edit - How could I forget dewormer? If you are preparing ahead of time, you should take the trouble to find the best on the market - Gel-Tek Ultra Cure.

Edit again - Backup filter, backup heater (adjustable between 70 and 90, since so many diseases are partially treated by specific temperatures), and backup air pump (battery-operated might be good). Also, an instant cycling product (Dr. Tim's, Tetra SafeStart, and/or BioSpira, depending on your salinity), would be good. Heat packs, the kind used for shipping fish, in case the power goes out. A sponge filter run alongside your regular filter would be good too, when paired with a backup battery-operated air pump.

Be sure to keep an eye on expiration dates on meds and instant cycling products.

Edit one last time - A SPARE TANK. You will need one, believe you me. One day you will need one, and you will either rejoice in your forethought or despair in your carelessness.

J-P wrote:ammonia and nitrite are removed by the bio filter ... Nitrate by plants, water changes and chemically

yes, yes, yes for when things have gone wrong ... for whatever reason; water quality, illness, etc. better to be prepared than be sorry.

ATG wrote:Melafix is always handy to have around.

thanks

busybones wrote:Scratch the ammonia and nitrite remover...Water changes water changes water changes....
Prime for declorinator

Dewormer with Praziquantel
melafix for injuries
Pimafix for fungal infections
epson salt for constipation

mucho gracias

busybones wrote:

ATG wrote:rename this to: "Kit for people who choose to cycle with fish"

I must have missed something... I was thinking it was more of a first aid kit for Puffers kind of thread....

yes, that is my intent. can you cycle with puffers, silly question.

who would even try, who would even think of cycling with fish. move on, NEXT

LilGreenPuffer wrote:Well, to remove ammonia, I'd use Prime, a neutralizer. It detoxifies the ammonia and leaves it in a state that the nitrifying bacteria can still use. That way, you don't starve your biofilter.

Medications - Melafix, Pimafix, aquarium salt, broad-spectrum antibiotics (Maracyn, Maracyn 1, and Maracyn 2 would probably be good, plus Triple Sulfa), and Finqel.

Edit - How could I forget dewormer? If you are preparing ahead of time, you should take the trouble to find the best on the market - Gel-Tek Ultra Cure.

Edit again - Backup filter, backup heater (adjustable between 70 and 90, since so many diseases are partially treated by specific temperatures), and backup air pump (battery-operated might be good). Also, an instant cycling product (Dr. Tim's, Tetra SafeStart, and/or BioSpira, depending on your salinity), would be good. Heat packs, the kind used for shipping fish, in case the power goes out. A sponge filter run alongside your regular filter would be good too, when paired with a backup battery-operated air pump.

Be sure to keep an eye on expiration dates on meds and instant cycling products.

Edit one last time - A SPARE TANK. You will need one, believe you me. One day you will need one, and you will either rejoice in your forethought or despair in your carelessness.

thanks again all.

I will updater the original post later

darb wrote:
yes, that is my intent. can you cycle with puffers, silly question.

who would even try, who would even think of cycling with fish. move on, NEXT

You would be surprised...

I wouldn't recomend keeping to many meds on hand. Just Melafix/Pimafix, Salt, and anti parasite meds.
Most medications expire within a year so only keep what you need too.
Also make sure to always have a test kit on hand

I have updated the original post to reflect everyones input. Maybe with some tuning it will be worthy of a sticky.

I am already running a backup sponge filter in all of my tanks that serves three purposes. First its a redundant system in case my HOB fails for whatever reason . Secondly, in case of power failure I have a deep cycle battery and inverter so I can rum my 22 watt air pump and all of my tanks including feeder tanks for a fair while. Final reason, it gives me an incredible bioload potential for the tank, I should never have a problem with ammonia levels and they are great for polishing the water.

That is a good list but it would have to be expanded to FW / BW adn SW species ... a general guide is good but different things happen in different water conditions.

PolishPuff had a similar idea.. a kind of flow chart of symptoms and recommendations. It is an excellent idea but generalities can kill fish.

J-P wrote:That is a good list but it would have to be expanded to FW / BW adn SW species ... a general guide is good but different things happen in different water conditions.

PolishPuff had a similar idea.. a kind of flow chart of symptoms and recommendations. It is an excellent idea but generalities can kill fish.

yes, like the title says an emergency kit to best prepare for most of the foreseeable problems, just like the one I keep for myself.

naturally there are differences between FW, BW and SW and most people that have had previous experience with fish should be aware of this.

it is just a general idea of what you may want to have on hand should a problem arise at 8:30 pm om a Friday, on a long weekend in a major snow storm.

I understand that but someone else might not... a new guy with a sudden power failure who has SW fish may try to use the incorrect medication or treatment.

This is going to be a long work in progress and we are more than willing to help.

darb wrote:Final reason, it gives me an incredible bioload potential for the tank, I should never have a problem with ammonia levels and they are great for polishing the water.

Having another filter doesn't increase the amount of bacteria in the tank - it just gives it another location to grow.

I like this, you could turn it into an article for the library if you'd like I personally don't like to see a lot of "stickies" at the top of the page.

One thing to add.. battery powered air pump, tubing, air stone and batteries. Lifesaver during power outages! During one power outage, I had splitters everywhere, using two little battery powered airstones, I kept water moving in several tank

I don't keep many meds on hand, because I need them so little that they'd be expired by the next time I needed them. So epsom salts, melafix, pimafix and dewormer (just because I deworm regularly).

Having some ammonia removing product is not necessarily bad and really can save your butt in an emergency. While products such as Prime and Amquel do de-toxify the ammonia, it still can be deadly if the tank is in bad enough shape. In a true emergency, with a crashed biofilter or who knows what I'd rather get the ammonia out ASAP and worry about rebuilding the bacteria later in the day when the panic has settled down a bit The good thing about true ammonia removing products (the kind like chips, etc) is you can take them back out of the tank and go about re-establishing your cycle quickly and easily. I wouldn't use them for more than a day or two, but they will buy you some time until you get get your hands on some live bacteria or whatever needs to be done to save the day.