The Puffer Forum

well here it goes i head all the stories about the DSB and the gas bubbles but i figured it was no biggie sine i clean weekly but i was WRONG....... Friday i was doing a water change and i moved a pretty large piece of rock and a gas bubble the size of light bulb came out. So i did not think it a big deal and i had to be at work in 30 min so i finished water change and added a power head and went to work....

I came home Saturday morn at around 7am and my puffers were attacking everything!!!! they were eating my molly so i took what was left of the molly out and then i realized they had awfully full stomachs and i noticed that my damsels were missing and my chromis had a hole in his head, My Banded sleeper Goby was hiding my long nose hawk was no place to be seen and the puffers were on the prowl..... so i turned off the power head checked levels and Nitrate was off the chart............ so i did emergency water change at 7:30in the am and went to sleep. woke up at around 2pm and every thing was eaten or dead beside puffers and 1 chromis............... i was so READY TO JUST GIVE UP........ then the puffers were acting really strange and nitrates were still through the roof i did another water change and turned off the lights and left. By time i got back from gym puffers were barely alive just bumping into rocks like they could not see and last chromis was hiding in rock work breathing REALLY HARD. But the tank was already leveled off so i just left tank as is i had no clue what to do and i left tank like that for a few days made sure levels were ok and finally today puffers came around and the chromis is still not moving much... do you think he is not active because he is alone or what?? and im pretty sure i want the get rid of my GSP's and do a invert orientated tank with some corals......... FML

sao870 wrote:...and im pretty sure i want the get rid of my GSP's and do a invert orientated tank with some corals.

I talked it over with my fish and they said this is a great idea.



What size is your tank?

55g im moving it all 2 a 36g bow front atm

Sorry to hear sao ;(

I'm not sure I understand, did the h2s gas get released from a depression in the rock, or from the sand bed under it? How deep is the substrate U use in the tank, and what kind of substrate is it?
I've read of these horror stories happening sometymes(they keep me up at night), but
I don't think U should give up!

im pretty sure its a bit of both i add some new LR so i was rearranging my old rock to fit it in and the LARGEST BUBBLE I HAVE EVER SEEN CAME OUT....

but i use aragonite sand and its about 3 inches im most places but it was 4-5 inches around the rock

sao870 wrote:im pretty sure its a bit of both i add some new LR so i was rearranging my old rock to fit it in and the LARGEST BUBBLE I HAVE EVER SEEN CAME OUT....

but i use aragonite sand and its about 3 inches im most places but it was 4-5 inches around the rock

I don't personally have any experience with LR, but I thought the "critters" living in the rock kept h2s bubbles from forming to a minimum. Anything I have in my tank be it rock, or driftwood gets rearranged often, or atleast lifted so I can siphon the detritus from under. I'm guessing that most live rock doesn't get moved around that often in peoples BW, and SW tanks?

I use sand mostly in my tanks. I try and keep the depth to no greater than 2" save for a couple places where I make a "dune" like area where it may be a bit deeper(only cause I think it looks cool)- and these places as well get "vacuumed/rebuilt" often.

How are the tank params looking now?

i thought the critters did that to............. im to late to do anything so ill have to give over it

Take the puffers out & put them in a bucket. Do a through stirring of the sand & remove all but 1". Do a 90% WC. Put the puffers back. Don't add any tank mates in the future.

Was it all real LR or did you have any ceramic, LR looking, rocks in there? I wouldn't imagine such a large bubble could be held under with LR sense their are so many holes. good luck...

yea it was a piece of base rock not LR that i used as the base of my LR structure ............. and i did what was suggested with the bucket . tank is fine now but im sure i want a more community tank after loosing so much live stock that were far more pricer than my puffers .... but it is the nature of the beast i will currently be looking to re home these guys by the end of this week.

Yep, puffers are generally NOT community fish.

i have officially learned a few hundred dollar lesson

Sometimes gaining knowledge is expensive. But on the bright side knowledge gained this way is not easily forgotten.

sao870 wrote: i have officially learned a few hundred dollar lesson

Happens to the best of us.

i was wondering if you all had any ideas on what to do with my tank since im finding a new home for my puffers ... i really wanna get some cool inverts....