The Puffer Forum

1) Water parameters: pH=8.1, Ammonia/Nitrite=0, Nitrate <=20, salinity=1.022
2) 72g with 30g sump. Approx 80 lbs live rock. Inhabitants: 2 GSPs (5", 3"), 1 (new and deadly) NLP (3")
3) Products: dechlorniator. Feeding sched: few times a week until puffers are a bit too fat. Water Change: whenever nitrates get unacceptable.
4) My fiancee added her under-quarantined narrow-lined puffer to my tank after she couldn't eradicate unexpected ammonia spikes (with water changes) from the QT tank. It showed no symptoms of ich during the spikes, but was only QT'd for a week.
5) Set up: Years ago, cycled with live rock.

I haven't been around here much as I've been busy moving and getting engaged. I'm posting for an emergency situation, (see above), in which a newly added fish is showing signs of marine ich in my well-established tank.

I need to acquire/purchase well-seeded, known *healthy*, brackish filter media at around sg 1.009 (1.005-1.013 is fine). Preferably a large quantity, but at least enough to support 1 3" puffer fish (others will be added gradually), so that the fish can go to hypo with just an acclimation without the weeks of large, stressful water changes.

My fiancee has offered to drive anywhere within 20 hours or so of CT, USA to pick it up.

Please, help save my puffers!

Wish I was nearer Nick, hope you find someone to help. Fingers crossed!

Never thought of advertising for something like that but I hope you find some. Would you trust Craigslist for healthy media?

Congrats on your engagement!

Nick I have some from a tank that is 1.010 but I'm in Wisconsin.....

Thanks for everyone wanting to help out.

Dadof4 wrote:Nick I have some from a tank that is 1.010 but I'm in Wisconsin.....

Wisconsin is a bit too far, but thank you.

I'm going a slightly different route, which doesn't require the other tank (though it may if there's an ammonia spike - so I'd still love to have some media on hand) as recommended by an extremely helpful vet at the Mystic Aquarium.

If that fails, then what about overnight shipping in a breather bag?

Thanks for the offer, I may yet take you up on it - After having called Mystic aquarium and talked to the fish vet there, I'm trying a process he recommended where the tank is put into hypo with many many small water changes over a few days, he says this acclimates the beneficial bacteria and even the live rock/sand if you are patient and is what he has had the most success doing. Seems a little off from traditional practice, but I gave a detailed description of how my sump and filter media are set up and he believes it should work without a crash.

So you are choosing to risk crashing your entire established tank instead of doing daily water changes on the hypo tank?

Though I suppose, the ich is already in the tank, you might as well eh?

That's pretty much what I figure - there's going to be bigtime dieoff from fallowing anyway, why not take a chance this will work. SG down to 1.016 from 1.022 and parameters are still fine, been about 36 hours. Cross your fingers!

Did another change, 1.015 now, ammonia and nitrite still at zero. Nitrate was nearing 20 before the changes started(was getting due for water changes anyway) and it's declining proportionately to the SG. I'm cautiously optimistic: Halfway to 1.009 and it's still working - if this actually works, I'm going to be unimaginably happy at saving the puffers the massive stress of weeks of daily rising ammonia and nitrites before the levels would have stabilized.

Please keep us updated on this. I'm highly interested to see how this process goes for you.

Are you using anything when you do the dillution? Amquel or Prime? Just curious if that might be helping too.

Well, it's at 1.010 so only one change left. Still 0 nitrites and ammonia. I haven't used any Amquel or Prime, though I do have both on hand along with some Biospira just in case.

The final water change was completed earlier today, SG a bit under 1.009, in just under 5 days by my account. No ammonia or nitrite found. My calerpa has died off somewhat(I removed any dead looking bits before they began to soften and rot), but my coraline algae appears fine so far - I suspect the 6 weeks in hypo will be much harder on it however.
I think several factors have contributed to this not crashing the biofilter. I've ruled out it having crashed but the tests are bad, as the fish are all acting healthy and normal, and the spots even disappeared from Ulrike(the fish that brought in the infection) about two days ago.
1) The intake/output setup - the drain for the sump is at the top level of the water, on the exact opposite side of the tank from the input spouts, which are a vertical fine spray bar from a Fluval feeding to all levels of the tank and a Magnum output spout right near the water surface. The magnum valve I turn off for 6 hours after each change, slowing the freshwater flow from the sump post change to 350GPH or so, evenly flowing into all depths of the main tank. This means the live rock is slowly acclimated to the new SG over several hours, after which I turn the second input back on and the throughput goes back up to 750GPH.
2) The filter media arrangement - after going through the drain, the water pours through a biobag(or whatever other bag shaped media I can get cheap) wrapped around the end and onto a bag of purigen. After that, it goes into a flooded tray, which has a bag of chemi-pure over one drain and a BIG bag of purigen over the other. The flooded tray is above the sump water level, but always itself full of water, with a small amount overflowing into the sump and most of it flowing through the drains in the bottom - this keeps it from being a wet/dry, but it's also not immersed in sump water at any time.
3) Doing only 2-3 water changes a day, at least 8 hours apart.

Overall, I think this creates a situation where the live rock and filter media are effectively drip-acclimated to each change in SG over several hours. The cysts embedded in the fish fell off after a few days of this, despite the change being gradual, and I see no reason why the free-swimming parasites which will eventually hatch over the next month or so will not also die when they are released. I will continue updating this thread as to the progress of this experimental method.

Please do keep us updated. Sounds neat!