The Puffer Forum

I KEEP TWO GREEN SPOTTED PUFFERS IN A 29 GALL TANK WITH A SG OF 1.005. THEY ARE BOTH JUVIES, BOUT 2'' TO 3'' AND WELL FED. HOB FILTER AQUACLEAR 70. WATER QUALITY IS OK TANK HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED FOR 9 MONTHS. MARINE SAND SUBSTRATE 1-2'' THICK WITH LITTLE DECOR.WEEKLY WATER CHANGES 15 to 20% AND VACUUMING.water changes are done with tap water, ap genesis chlorine remover and instant ocean salt. ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0, i have no saltwater ph or nitrate test kit. they have been ordered and will be here thurs. i do have some dip sticks by jungle and the ph is 7.5 to 7.8 and nitrates are 20 to 40 ppm on the saltwater color chart. also, using the dipsticks, total alalinity is around 300 ppm. water temp is a constant 78 to 80 degrees. steady diet of freeze dried river shrimp, frozen bloodworms, crappy ones picked out, frzn mysis, brine shrimp and krill. soaked ocasionally with kent marine garlic extreme. also live crickets, live meal worms, and an occasional freshwater clam rinsed well or scallop raw and diced, and snails from a snail tank i raise specifically for the puffers {ramshorn} . the snail tank is a ten gallon with an aquaclear hob 20 and the water is crystal clear with no smell. the dip sticks come out with perfect water conditions when i test, i feed them veggie flakes, lettuce, zuchini, carrots, watermelon rind, cucumbers, apples, shrimp pellets and fish flakes. no substrate, weekly vacuuming with tap replenishment and clorine remover. afterall you are what you eat. now back to the puffers. i add api stresszyme to the tank once a week and currently use a phosorb media in place of my carbon bag to keep down algea. today 10-30-10 i have removed the phosorb bag and installed a carbon media for the aquaclaer model 70. curiously this flashing has existed before the phosorb but thats about when the cloudy water started. also one bubble disk 3'' at half force. 4 days ago i added 4 amano shrimp to see if they will work well as cleaners, hope they make it. so far so good and they are replaced easily. HOWEVER, I FIND FROM TIME TO TIME THEY WILL RUB OFF THE DECOR. FLASHING I GUESS. I NOTICE THE WATER HAS A VERY SLIGHT FOG OR CLOUD TO IT BUT ITS SO FAINT I THINK IT MIGHT BE THE GLASS. IT APPEARED ABOUT 3 MONTHS AGO. when they flash they may do it once or twice and then thier good. i watch them very closey and enjoy monitoring thier health and progress. during the course of a week i may see this happen 4 or 5 times and ive noticed its more after a feeding than when their just sitting and resting. the flashing seems to be focused on the side/pectoral fin area, this however may also be a gill issue wich i have thought, but their so dam fast when they do it its hard to tell. i do not see them gasping for air or haveing any related symptoms aside from the occasional yawn. their breathing seems quite normal and very consistant. there is no scarring or damage to the body or fin that i can detect and see no slime or coating on them. as i read my first post it became clear that there was a great amount of info missing. i myself am a proffesional troubleshooter and a very good one at that. hvacr technician for 18 yrs. i feel the same way when my customers do that to me. i wish i had a large red bold text to refer them to lol. from now on i will try to have a more appropriate proffesional approach.....

Please don't ever treat for anything you're not sure of, especially with a puffer, as they are very sensitive to meds. Also, most anti-bacterial you use in that tank will crash the system.

Moving this to the Hospital Forum, so you can answer all the Qs at the top, in red.

BTW, on forums such as this, typing in all caps is considered YELLING.

most things can be treated without meds, which as PP already said arent that great for puffers. If its ich heat and salt is all you need

Some reading for you:
library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
library/hospital/fwich/

today i did a 50% water change. added 15 drops of genesis chlorine remover and decided to raise the sg .002, sg is now 1.008 nitrate 40 ppm, nitrite .5 ppm, kh 300 ppm, ph 7.0 7.5, ammonia 0. test for ammonia an nitrite are liquid all othe tests are dipstick. also added api stress zyme

Please do not double post, please continue with the topic you previously started on this. I merged the topics together but in the future the double post will be locked.

PUFFFORPEACE wrote:today i did a 50% water change. added 15 drops of genesis chlorine remover and decided to raise the sg .002, sg is now 1.008 nitrate 40 ppm, nitrite .5 ppm, kh 300 ppm, ph 7.0 7.5, ammonia 0. test for ammonia an nitrite are liquid all othe tests are dipstick. also added api stress zyme

Let the tank finish cycling before you raise the SG anymore. Showing nitrites means you are not completely cycled, once you get in this range (1.006 - 1.010) the bacteria is very delicate and if you weren't completely cycled when you started raising the SG you could kill off what you have of your biological filter.

so should i reduce the sg or let it go now, perhaps im pushing to fast to go marine with them. im a puffer virgin. today i saw something unusual. while resting and colorful my puffer seemed to be choking or making motions like he was eating rapidly, then arched his back and seemed to be, what looked like, trying to throw up. ive seen this mid air munching on occasion but never the arched back and heaveing. it lasted 10 secs total. afterwards he seemed fine and has seemed ok since [about three hours now]. i mention this because it maybe related to thier flashing. i saw one flash today also but just once. the water is crystal after a couple days of carbon and yesterdays water change. i hope it stays that way. maybe the hazy water made them itchy?

PUFFFORPEACE wrote:today i did a 50% water change. added 15 drops of genesis chlorine remover...

If one drop of "geniesis chlorine remover" treats one gallon of water and you are adding it directly to the tank after a water change, then you should be adding enough to treat the whole tank volume and not just the volume that was replaced.

PUFFFORPEACE wrote:...while resting and colorful my puffer seemed to be choking or making motions like he was eating rapidly, then arched his back and seemed to be, what looked like, trying to throw up. ive seen this mid air munching on occasion but never the arched back and heaveing...

Mill worms are hard to digest and I would stop feeding them. This could be the reason.


So the two questions are; what are the directions on the chlorine remover and how often have you been feeding mill worms.

Also, you should be doing 50% weekly water changes.

Don't raise or lower your SG right now, just ride it out. Daily water changes at that SG of 50% until you are showing 0 nitrites.

ok, 50's daily till 0 nitrites. my kits should be in thurs. i will post on sun. jrc i dont understand why you would treat 30 galls for a water change when the only water that needs to be treated is the make up. the dosage is proportional to the new water chlorine content. teach me.

PUFFFORPEACE wrote:...jrc i dont understand why you would treat 30 galls for a water change when the only water that needs to be treated is the make up. the dosage is proportional to the new water chlorine content. teach me.

I don't know the specifics but it is just common practice when adding chlorine remover directly to the tank after a water change to add enough to treat the whole tank volume. I'm guessing it has something to do with how the chlorine remover bonds to the chlorine. And it probably also has something to do with the diluted concentration of both chlorine and chlorine remover in the total volume of water.

Again, I don't know specifically why, I just know it's common practice. I'm sure somebody else will explain it shortly.

Alright its been a few weeks now and while i wasnt doing daily water changes ive been doing 80% water changes twice weekly. I have been giving the glass spot cleanings only and they are once a week maybe, and cleaned the filter once during week two because it was time. It was done in tank water during a water change.have not cleaned ornemants. Little to no algae. Still 4 Amano shrimp, 80% water change yesterday, mild scrub of ornaments in tank water. Still little to no algae. Added Jungle ACE Ammonia Chloramine Chorine remover and API Stress Zyme as usual. Today finally nitates are 0. Yellow is now my favorite color. sg is 1.005 to 1.006, ph is 7.8, ammonia is oppm, nitrite is 0 ppm. All test are done with API liquid test kits for saltwater. I am happy to report that the flashing has decreased. Now it is to soon to tell if it was the high nitrates or not. It could still be a lull in the infection or gill issue or whatever, however this is the first time i have witnessed a reverse change in thier behavior in 4 months or more. I had noticed or realized about a week ago that i havent seen the flashing for a while. I will try to include some pics of two very happy puffers. I will update soon on thier progress. Thank You

Sounds like you are becoming a successful pufferkeeper!