The Puffer Forum

Hello, and thanks in advance.
I have a 29 Gallon Low end Brackish Tank (SG approx 1.0065) that I cycled with guppies and stepped the SG up to 1.004 before the addition of 2 juvenile GSPs ( Georgia and Lenny ). They have been living quite comfortably in there for more than 6 months with a few female guppies, two tiny Mexican Black Mollies, a colony of Ghost Shrimp (Which actually breed in the tank!) and one female Fiddler Crab, adult size. I wish I could give a detailed breakdown of my params but all I have tests for atm are nitrate and nitrite. NitRITES are @ 0ppm but NitRATES are 80ppm. I know this is an unsafe level but let me get into that first with some history.
Then I got the GSPs from Wal-Mart it wasnt the typical horror story, yes the employees were idiots who were mistreating the little guys, and didnt know jack about their care, however I researched them before buying and waited patiently until the very day they got a shipment with reasonable specimens. I got the two home and did a slipshod drip acclimation (it was my first). Anyway, after a few hours I put them in free-swimming. Lenny quickly adapted to the environment by checking out his new digs, white belly, flourescent crown and all. Georgia, on the other hand, went into hiding in some java moss, in a "comma" shape on the sand substrate, grey belly, almost bluish color replacing the green. This was naturally distressing and I thought maybe she had parasites or another ailment. Over time I have come to the conclusion that she is MUCH more timid and high strung than Lenny. Maybe because he is bigger than her and thus is a "benevolent" bully. No open hostility, but picture an older sibling. I have to make sure she gets her share of food, etc.
That being said, her tendency to have the darker belly or at least "mad spots" by her mouth has nagged at me. I asked my local expert (independent FS owner with 14+ years exp) what might be up, and he said the PH might be too low. So, like a dumb buttocks, instead of getting the PH checked I decided to step it up a small "bump" with some coral skeleton. This was also an effort to give them something else to break up sightlines. I aquired maybe .85 pounds of the stuff, consisting of 2 structures of it. Before adding it, I also decided to do a bigger change than usual. This is where I have to admit that Im far less fastidious in my changes than Im sure you advise. I do a 25% change monthly, top off when needed, and do 10% whenever anyone looks a little frazzled. I do a 40% every month and a half to 2 months. I know a lot of people will say thats insufficient, but IME whenever I did them more often the puffs both got grey and stresed for A WEEK at least.
Anyway, I figured a good housecleaning was in order and did... hmm Ill say a 55%-60% change... It was more than i intended to pull out but I went with it. I stepped the SG up by .0005 or so when I did this. Then I added the coral Skeletons. As an Afterthought I also added one more pc of driftwood (sized medium) in, so as to help buffer any spike that might occur, just in case. A few hours after everything was gin-clear I did a feeding of Krill. No one but the smaller guppies had any appetite but IME after a big change thats not TOO atypical.
Everybody seemed fine last night, both puffs were extremeley energetic in checking out the new scenery once the scare had died down. Today upon waking up I gave the tank a cursory exam before work. Lenny was frisky and neon, and Georgia seemed somewhat less sedentary than usual. Her colouration was the typical green with a little bit of grey marbling down the lateral line. She seemed normal (for her) in other words.
Tonight after work, as is my custom, their tank was the first of my 5 that I looked in on. To my dismay, Georgia was actually SWIMMING in that "comma" body configuration, and her colouration was that of when she is under duress. Big "mad spots" by her mouth and a slate grey belly. It seemed that she was gasping and I noticed that her gills were opened into wide, round holes. Then I saw what I first mistook for a missing left fin! After I looked some more I saw that the fin was simply clenched tightly on that one side. She was happy to see me and coloured up a bit, also when swimming around she started using the fin, a little creakily though. Lenny is shining neon green and very active as usual, but they BOTH have clamped tail fins and Lenny keeps tucking his dorsal up and down. Georgia is in the habit of keeping a closed tail fin, but Lenny's is always fanned out.
After my examination I removed all the new items, both skeletons and the pc of wood. This returns me to the nitrates being 80ppm. Usually I would do a 25%... but I just DID a 50%... and theres a chance that this is mostly stress due to de-acclimatization, right? So I want to hold off on another change that could further degrade the chemistry they are used to. At this point Im checking on them often and hoping you guys can help. Damnit! I just tried more Krill and neither ate... I know thats not a good sign.
A little more info that may help.... I use a 30g hang on back filter that I pack my own bags for with carbon, and run two airstones to increase current/buffering. The tank is planted with 2 big swords and java moss, plus some small sticks to give the guppies a little tannin.
I know Im preaching to the choir here, but these are not "just fish" in the way that the guppies and tetras etc I have are... their family. PLEASE RESPOND with ANY helpful advice! -Purifire

This may actually be very important and it just occured to me. The test strips I use are labeled for Salt/Fresh ... but have only Salt / Fresh on the little colortabs. IDK if that's going to read accurate nitRATE or nitRITE levels off. Just wanted to put that out there because I cant see how after a 55% change the nitRATES could read so damn high (80ppm)
Anyway thanks in advance for any help! -Purifire

How quickly did you raise the salinity, and by what degree?
Raising the salinity by more than .002 per week can kill off the beneficial bacteria, and your ammonia might be rising.

Your tank is greatly over stocked, and your water changes are not sufficient. If you feel like your water changes are stressing out the fish, are you checking to make sure that the temperature and salinity levels are the same? Are you making sure the salt is fully dissolved? What type of salt are you using?
If the salinity if too much different, the fish can go into shock. Are you dechlorinating the water?
Minimum 30 *per* puffer. You will want to use Prime as your water conditioner, it helps protect the fish from their waste products as well as dechlorate.

Here is a great article too: library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/

Thank you for your fast response!
Im fairly sure the salinity went up by .0005 in the change.
I am using instant ocean and Im fairly certain I am mixing it properly. heres how I do it:


I get it dechlorinated ( Aquasafe by Tetra )
Then I add the salt.

Next I apply an airstone for... idk, 10-15 mins.

And I fine tune the salt from there with an instant ocean hydrometer (which seems to be really innacurate to me, idk)

As for the overstocking, I had a batch of guppy fry in there too, I took all I could catch out 30mins ago. I'll go to my LFS and get an ammonia test tomorrow.

Assuming I didn't botch the salinity on the change, do you think it's the bigger replacement than their used to be whats stressing them out?

or me trying the coral skeletons? Whats your take on them are they usually safe for low end brackish?

thanks for the help! -Purifire

I believe changes in salinity could cause a cycle? This could be adding stress to the fishies. In my experience, it wasn't the salinity change that stressed the GSP's out as much as the water quality... (they mustve been through marine/freshwater numerous times, but the ammonia/nitrites were minimum and they were never grey/dark coloured)

Reckon you should get a big tank for them welcome to the forum !

Go ahead and recheck your salinity, the salt should be mixed over night/minimum of several hours. I'm thinking that the air stone may not be mixing thoroughly, a power head is recommended, but mostly it is amount of time.

.0005 is negligible, the coral is totally fine. I wouldn't use driftwood, the salt will destroy it, that will just leach into the water. pH is not read externally by fish, what would cause them to go into shock would be other factors, like temperature, or the sudden change in the amount of dissolved solids in the water. So considering the water changes were infrequent, starting with smaller daily water changes, and slowly moving up is recommended. But that being said, the coral addition, unless it had something on it bad, would not harm your fish.

I kept wracking my brain about if it COULD be the salt... My crappy plastic hydrometer wasnt helping much though....
But I wasn't sure of if I missed something in my figurings. I was using different sized basins I bought the day before and looking back, was pretty sure I botched the salt level by adding too much. I just did a 10% with 100% fresh water going in, and you could see the two liquids mixing if you squinted. The little guys showed a reaction in less than a minute after the new mix was in solution. They both perked up, all the clamped fins unfurled, and their swimming around pretty much as usual.
I'm stoked! The dumb hydrometer shows no big change but everyone is acting normal. I should probably get a refractometer.
And make sure I calculate things better in the first place.

one question: Will I have killed my whole bacterial load with a spike like that?

thanks! -purifire

If you cycle as tank with fish (1st mistake--see the Fishless Cycling articles in our Library), & then add more fish without removing the fish you cycled with, it's like not cycling the tank at all. The bacteria you built up with the cycling fish is only enough to support those fish & no more than that. You must get yourself a good, liquid test kit for ammonia, nitrite & nitrate. API makes a good, inexpensive kit. Your tank is way overstocked. Remove all fish but the puffers. Eventually, you will have to upgrade to a 60-75g tank, as they grow the size of large Nerf footballs.

The fact that your puffer changes after a water change, means you aren't doing enough of them or large enough. The water quality in your tank should be very similar to the clean water in your tap. In a normally-stocked tank, we do weekly 50% WC.

If you don't feel your hydrometer is accurate, either compare it against a calibrated refractometer or get one for yourself (don't forget the calibration solution)!

2 GSPs may be fine in a 29g for a short time (until they reach 2") but if one is more aggressive than the other & there isn't a TON of decor in there breaking up the lines of site to make territories for each & a place for the meeker puffer to retreat away from the other one, eventually the larger more aggressive puffer will bully & starve the other puffer to death.

Best thing you can do for your puffers right now, are many small water changes, until you get the nitrate <20. Then re -home those other fish & start saving up for a larger tank.

No, if you are showing only a .0005 difference, you're fine, it's greater than .002 that would cause an issue.

Thanks for the help all!
Yeah, I know the tanks has too many organisms in it. I had a 25 gallon that bust a side seam a little while back and it was a guppy/tetra community. I had some oddballs too. Anyway I didnt have the $ for a new tank and the little guys got spread out into my other tanks. The gups went into the brackish because the tetras wouldnt tolerate it. I am currently looking into fixing the broken tank by resealing the side seam. That would take a lot of strain off the other tanks. Like I was saying in my last post.... Do you guys think approx 24 hrs with too much salt will kill all my nitrifying bacteria?
-purifire

.0005 ? that is a pretty accurate hydrometer... :/ I have a feeling you have an extra zero in there.

Do you understand what I'm saying about how you cycled that tank? Seams are really easy to repair.

sevenyearnight wrote:No, if you are showing only a .0005 difference, you're fine, it's greater than .002 that would cause an issue.

I'm sorry if you missed it, but I answered that twice.
That is way too small of a change, you're good