The Puffer Forum

My F8 has just died, I'm sad.

I have only had him for a few weeks and today i did a 50% water (FW) change, It is a fairly new tank (4 weeks) so I have been doing a 20% change every 2nd day, I have started introducing brackish (.002) which i did last weekend.

He has not eaten much for the past few days too and kept to one end of the tank, I have tested the water every other day and levels are ok, Nitrate a little high the other day at .3 so did a 50% change then too.

I have a few other fish in the tank and they are fine, swimming around happy and eating normal, 2 x yoyo loaches, 3 x zebra's and a few gupp's

Any Ideas? I would like another but not if i have a problem

Garry

1st of all, those other fish aren't brackish & won't appreciate any salt. Nitrate of 0.3 is no problem. What about ammonia/nitrite? How were you conditioning the water for WC? Are you adding any chemicals to the tank?

I have not been using any other chemicals in the water other than the aqua safe treatment for the tap water at 5ml for every 10 lts. Pet shop said the fish i had would be ok up to .030 brackish which i was taking it to over time, all other tests came ok with amonia 0, nitrite approx 20 and PH approx 7

So it's nitrite that is 0.3? Then that tank has not cycled properly & the last thing you want to do is add salt to that system. BTW, your pet shop is wrong. FW fish should be kept in FW.

thats what i thought so since he died thisafternoon i have completed 2 x 50% water changes and hover out etc, before i started adding salt all my levels were correct, I am going to do a 50% change every day for the next week to be safe before housing another

also whats the best way to clean the filter, last time i did it i just droped it into the water i removed when cleaning and rinsed it through with the old water

When you do get another one, then remove all those other fish (they're not BW anyway) or there won't be enough bacteria to support the puffer.

pardon if this sounds stupid but does it make a diff to the bac levels if you have more fish in the tank, as in not enough to go around?

Every fish produces waste & needs enough bacteria to break that toxic ammonia waste down to toxic nitrite, then much less toxic nitrate. More fish = more bacteria needed to support them. Remove some fish & add a different fish & there is enough bacteria from the ones you remove, to support the new one. Understand?

i think i'm keeping up lol, thanks