The Puffer Forum

For starters:

1) Last water change was on 11/20. I woke up that morning with the water in the tank incredibly cloudy and bubbly and having been crystal clear the night before so I did roughly a 60% water change. After water change my levels were: pH of around 7.4-7.8 Ammonia at 1.0-2.0 ppm Nitrate at 10-20 and nitrite around 0.25. No matter the aquarium salt added it seems my hydrometer always reads the exact same.

2) Tank is 10 gal. With 2 GSP's and 1 Dalmatian mollie. But since last water change I've removed the Molly. It was surprisingly aggressive towards the other 2.

3) currently feeding tropical fish flake, and ghost shrimp. However I put 3 in there and none of the fish so much as gave them a second look and never ate them until I had to re catch them, kill them and literally hand feed them to my puffer with tongs! Kind of strange. I'm using about a week old brand new fluval U2 filter, jungle aquarium salt and stress coat.

I've had this tank and set up going on 3 weeks now. I do not know how long the tanks been in the works for as I "inherited" it recently. I also don't have any details on how and when it was cycled unfortunately.

Now for my concerns-

I am most obviously new to this and would appreciate any help because I'm feeling like a deer in headlights with all this. My smaller puffer I noticed today was laying oddly on the bottom of the tank (see attached photo). I noticed he wasn't using one of his side fins and I at first thought it'd been bitten off or damaged. He is usually quite active but remained like that for about 10 minutes before all of a sudden "waking up" it seemed and started swimming around again. For the first minute or so he wasn't using his left side fin to swim at all. Then snapped out of it and was swimming in full function. He looks slightly greyer on his under belly and his green is noticeably darker as well.

I have no idea what's going on or what to do. HELP please!

For starters, in my opinion and per the care info here and related places (ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Brackish/T_Nigroviridis/), 2 GSPs will rapidly need a 40 gallon 48x12x16 tank to avoid stunting and possibly even a 75 gallon 48x18x18 long-term depending on aggression.

If your hydrometer keeps reading the same then something is wrong. I would get a new hydrometer or invest in a cheap refractometer plus some calibration solution to make sure it is accurate. They could easily handle 1.02 salinity.

The more urgent issue is your tank doesn't sound cycled if it has that kind of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate readings. Did you throw out the old filter? If so, that was where the good bacteria were. Unless perhaps you have some live rock. Even so, you need more room (water volume) to dilute the waste these puffers are producing. Even in the short term I would not try smaller than probably a 20 long or 29 high (30" length) for the two small GSPs (I assume under 2"?).

As far as lying on the bottom, they do that when they're sleeping, so that's a possibility.

To fix all the issues, at this point I would try to find some live saltwater bacteria (biospira used to be a good name) and follow the instructions exactly. I'm not familiar witht he fluval u2 but if it has a ceramic media component (white chunks of porous stuff) make sure you never throw that away. And just rinse sponges lightly, don't replace them.

Before you do that, see about upgrading their tank if at all possible, or returning one or both to a store if you can't make the room.

Your tank is overstocked & NOT cycled:
library/water-filtration/fishless-cycling/
library/water-filtration/emergencycycle/
library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/

Please make adjustments ASAP or you will have a tank full of dead fish.

As I had said, I more or less took this tank and fish so they wouldn’t be flushed A larger tank for the time being isn’t realistic. Neither is returning them to a store seeing as the only option would be to a local Wal-Mart. Even being a fish novice, I know Wal-Mart is terrible for fish. I just needed some temporary fixes. The article regarding cycling the tank was very informative and I will be putting those suggestions into effect immediately. Thank you all for your help! Initiating warp speed!

Wish me luck!