The Puffer Forum

1) tested pH, ammonia, nitrate, nitrates and salinity at the pet store and everything was okay except for ammonia which was at 1.0.

2) 3 gallon tank with no other fish. we recently put a new live aquatic plant in the tank

3) tonight i fed him a small piece of scallop. the last time we changed the water was approx. 4 days ago. today we added a drop of prime to address the ammonia and half of cap of stability, tank stabilization.

4) adding the new plant and the prime/stability

5) roughly 3 weeks or so.


puffer is acting, for want of a better word, chill. he sits at the bottom of the tank not doing much of anything, or he will go in his cave and sit. but he's only been doing this for one day. i felt it was out of the ordinary and thought maybe someone would know what the deal is. it isn't a constant thing- right now he's swimming like normal.

Okay, for starters, go and change 90% of the water.

Then read this: library/water-filtration/emergencycycle/

Now, can you tell us what kind of puffer you have?

Sorry to say but if your LFS told you ammonia of 1.0 (VERY toxic) was ok & didn't freak totally out & tell you to rush home & do a water change, then I think you need to find another LFS!

When you read that link LGP gave you, you'll see that Stability is not listed in there as anything beneficial to your cycling process or to your tank at all. Prime should be dosed as per instructions on the bottle, which comes to 1 drop/g.

On the bottle, it says that you should use two drops per gallon for chlorine, two for chloramine, and two for ammonia. I treat with six drops per gallon because of all the stuff in my tap water - I get all three right out of the pipes.

Hello norskie.ina
sorry you & your puffer are having troubles
you've come to the right place for help, but we need more info in order to figure out what needs to be done
what kind of puffer do you have?
was your tank cycled before you got your puffer, that is, did it go through the process of ammonia to nitrite to nitrate, or did you just add treatment chemicals & then the fish?

It's a GSP: library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/

Hello and welcome to the Forum!

Sorry that your puffer is behaving strangely. If it is a GSP, I would think your puffer would need a tank upgrade immediately! A 3-gallon tank isn't very big and the wastes your puffer produces will kill it, especially as you are only doing water changes every 4 days, which I don't believe is enough for a tank that small.

I hope you can get your puffer a bigger tank, and then he will be happier!

Thanks for all the replies!

We plan on getting a bigger tank for the GSP this weekend. I had a feeling he was a bit confined. Today we will change out the water and see if that helps any. This morning he was curled up in his stump; he appeared to be sleeping.

Unfortunately, we thought "cycling" meant letting the tank run with nothing it except for chemicals. (We stumbled upon this site a little too late). So, we added chemicals, let it run and then added the fish. And for the first couple of weeks he was great. Very happy. The way he's acting now started last night.

I'm contemplating sending my boyfriend to get the bigger tank today and cycle it poperly, asap.
Also- the fish store reccomended the Stability to help with ammonia, or BioSpira.

I would get a bigger tank today. If possible you need to try to find some used filter media or substrate from an established healthy tank..that or Dr.Tims/BioSpira. Please read over the Emergency cycling article to get you ready.

library/water-filtration/emergencycycle/

At this point, he's be better off in a 30g tank uncycled than a 3g uncycled.

Good news. Found an old 20g tank I had years ago. The boyfriend is off to pick up some BioSpira and begin to set up the new tank and cycle it. We read over the link you guys posted.

Thanks so much. Very, very helpful. Tonight the puffer will be in a new, larger happier home.

Bio-Spira is for high brackish to marine tanks. You'll need to get salt and a hydrometer, too, or the bacteria will die. Otherwise, you'll need to get Dr. Tim's or Tetra SafeStart. If nothing else, I've been hearing a lot of good from knowledgeable people about Seachem Stability...

Great news that your puffer will be going into a bigger tank!

We used the Seachem Stability last night in hopes that it would fix the problem. We're using marine salt to create a brackish environment for the fish.
I'm thinking it could be the ammonia that's causing him to be unhappy, so perhaps with the larger tank, things will go back to normal. I'll keep tabs

Have you read the topic on mixing brackish water?

I have heard of Stability working for several people, but also not working for others. I'd keep a very close eye on parameters.