The Puffer Forum

Hello everyone! I'm a semi-new owner to an adorable Green Spotted Puffer - I call him Bernie.
To be honest when I first got him (from walmart) I knew nothing about him and threw him in a tiny 5 gallon tank.
I read up on them and realized I had it all wrong. I quickly ran to the pet store to grab a new tank, new food, etc.
After setting up the 30 gallon it stayed clear for about a week, but now that he's comfortably living it seems it just won't stay clear.
I've been doing weekly 25% water changes or so, but it just won't get any clearer. It's a murky kind of color.
The water doesn't seem to be bothering him, he's got a bright white belly and seems extremely happy. I'm just confused as to why the
water won't stay clean. I thought maybe it was his food so I started feeding him a tad bit less to make sure the extra food wasn't clouding the water,
but nothing has changed. The only other thing I can imagine wrong is possibly the filter. It came with the tank so it's made for that size, but I've heard
you need higher filteration, so should I get a filter ideal for a bigger tank? I've read through the forum and can't seem to find my problem.

Any help or suggestions would be awesome.

When you mix the salt and water, do you add water to salt or salt to water?

How did you cycle you tank? The cloudiness could be due to a bacteria bloom. It happens when your tank is cycling and your beneficial bacteria is building up.

Suspended bacterial cloudiness is totally and completely independent of nitrification bacterial growth, Both are characteristic of new and uncycled or immature tanks.

It takes ~2 weeks to cycle a tank for nitrification bacteria, but it can take 3-6 months or more for a tank to really mature and stabilize for all bacteria and algae and inverts.

HTH

library/water-filtration/emergencycycle/

Read all of that, and get a liquid test kit (if you don't have one) and make sure your puffer isn't in really bad water conditions.