The Puffer Forum

PH 7
Ammonia 0
Nitrite .25
Nitrate 0
Salinity 1
Temp 78

Did a 50% water change on Wednesday, up'ed the salt levels slightly as well as added a hermit, puffer was acting fine and even ate a clam yesterday. This morning I woke to find it hovering at the top breathing very heavy, it's color went from vibrant to very muted and it's belly now has 2 dark spots. I immediately turned the bubble wand back on (leave it off at night), and added prime & stability into the tank incase of a nitrate posioning. I was unable to get new readings this morning as I was already late for work freaking out over this.

"Salinity 1" One point what? 1.???

Sorry... 1.005, phone doesn't always add in what I type.

Nitrate is at 0.0? Are you using liquid or strip tests? You can't have nitrate poisoning with 0.0 nitrate. If using strips, get liquid tests. If using liquid, shake the Bob Saget ot of the 2nd bottle.
Your nitrite at 0.25 is a problem though. Leave the salinity at 1.005, continue water changes until your nitrite stays at 0.0, make sure your exchange water is the same salinity and has had enough time to mix thoroughly. When your levels are stable wait a week, and continue raising the SG.

I think I have a bad liquid test kit, i follow the directions to a T with ALL of them, and no matter what tank I test, or how long it's been cycled, it comes out 0. I even tested my crap snail breeding tank and it came out, 0. Think the little guy will make it until I can get home to do a water change later this afternoon?

Your tank isn't cycled/stable. How fast did you raise that SG? Also, hermit crabs are SW animals.

My tank has been up since September, and cycled with mature bacteria from another tank.
I raised the SG by .20 every 2 weeks.

.20?

.02 - good gracious my phone is crap. Sorry again.

And make that every week, not every 2

My only assumption is that perhaps my hydrometer POS mislead my reading and the salt level was raised too quickly?

possibly. or you might just have to make sure the needle(if not digital) is free swinging before measuring the salinity. i would get the new liquid test kits asap and test again. if you get the same results there might have been some die off of the bacteria in the conversion(if raised too fast). if there is actually nitrite in the tank and no nitrate i would do smaller partial water changes til that goes down and you start seeing nitrate again

Honestly, you have to REALLY shake the second bottle of Nitrate test hard, like even bang it against something. If I just shake it normally, it won't read any nitrate either.

Something else I thought of, not sure if it matters or not. Yesterday I got the bag of frozen half shell clams out, forgot they were out for about 45 minutes, and put them back in the freezer. Would that have caused them to go bad? It is acting better than this morning, swimming around as well as not trying to breath as hard. Some of it's color has come back as well, the entire thing is just odd and out of nowhere.

I don't think they'd go bad in 45 minutes.