The Puffer Forum

so here goes...... we had our daughters b-day party and someone brought a kid over that had the flu like an idiot. she got everyone sick and in the aftermath my wife got lysol sanitizing spray and neutra air made by lysol. well i wasnt here i was away on drill for the national gaurd. when i got back i check my brackish tank wich has an open back to it and the amonia was 3.0. needles to say i have done water change after water change and i have been able to keep it below .5 for now but i have a sg of 1.014 and its going through my salt like crazy. all in all my tanks crashed because lysol overspray got into my tank and killed my cycle and now im just trying to keep my fish alive for as long as i can untill my tank atleast gets through the first part of the cylce which i hope doesnt take forever. just wanted to post this as a warning to everyone lysol overspray which wasnt directed at my tank still got some into it and killed my cycle. just wanted to share my experiance...... wish me luck.

I suggest adding a bag of fresh carbon to your filter. You could also try using Dr Tim's to add good bacteria to the filter but you'd have to forgo WC for 24 hours to let he bacteria take hold.

thnx for the carbon tip ill give it a go.

one ? though does it matter what salt gravity you have for dr. tims. i know alot of bacteria can be somewhat particular about the sg.

As long as it's <1.010, it should help somewhat.

my sg is at 1.014 so if it has to be less then 1.010 i dont think it will work. i just stocked up on salt and some more testing supply since i was running low and i saw biozyme it was only 4 bucks so i picked it up cheap enough to give it a go. the amonia seems to be going down very little but im not getting any nitrite readings so i wander if its possible to just have the amonia eating bacteria affected through all of this im still not sure yet. and im not saying that the biozyme is working since i tested right after i added that to my tank but seems like things mite be looking up for a lil bit ima see how it is in the morning. the color on my gsp is looking alot better but he is still greyish on the belly with a grey mustach. is there any chance i could have just stunted his growth with all of this stress and basically poisoning?

Is Biozyme refrigerated? If not, you may be adding to the problem, by adding dead bacteria.

You could also use an ammonia-absorbing/removing chemical. As long as you're very, very careful about not leaving it in for too long and starving the biofilter, it can be a big help. I used Ammo-Carb when I had a tank crash after I used a medication that wasn't supposed to harm the biofilter but did. Ammo-Carb has regular carbon, too, which would help remove the Lysol.

It's not chilled it's a powder never seen it b4. I'm a skeptic on these things but it said to add only 1/8 tspn per 25 gallons so I added 1/4 tsp. I'm not going to add anymore unless I see a change in water condition but I figured if it's a waist then a 1/4 tsp wouldn't hurt me much with the dailey 80 to 90% water changes I'm doing. My ammonia has been kept below .5 mostely .25 but with no nitrite readings and continues but very slite nitrate readings I'm confused as to how my amonia eating bacteria could have been affected and not my nitrite eating bacteria.

I added the carbon already and was going to buy the ammonia reducing filter media ( I have an aquaclear 50) but it said for fw use only.

A 1/4 tsp may not seem like much but imagine if your puffer pooped out that much, how that would affect a biofilter that couldn't handle the present waste your puffer is emitting.

Well we'll see. It'll be interesting to see if it does anything. I wouldn't use them but might as well let it continue since it's already been added.

Good point hopefully with my water changes it shouldn't really affect it that much my amonia was at .25 this evening I'm hopeing I'll see a decrees when I wake up but no breath holding here. I just thought I would give it a shot I will keep up the water changes for as long as needed and plan on makeing a hour long drive within the next couple of days to the neerest sw not so lfs to try and scrounge some filter media or used gravel. When I went to petsmart today to restock on salt and testing supplies I asked them for some and they looked at me like I was stupid and offer me some chemicals.... Go figure. But I saw the biozyme and decided to give it a shot since I had never seen or read anything about it. I would still like to know if the ammonia reducing filter media that said for fw only will actually work in my mid bw setup. Also if the only media I can get is either full fw or sw which one should I get or would it do more bad then good as the bacteria die from the wrong sg.

I just thought I would give it a shot

Often, adding something can be worse than adding nothing...

I agree the reason I opted to try it out is because it's not a chemical ammonia reducer( I really don't like those) it stated to have 2 specific types of bacterial spores or something like that. I wish I hdnt thrown the package away so I could give details of the product. But if it doesn't work it'll be no worse the over feeding a 1/4 tsp of flake food. This stuff was podered and really smelt like dry dog food which for the price it probably was ground dogfood or something . But at least it wouldn't prohibit my tank from cycling or slow it down like most chemicals will yah know.