The Puffer Forum

Hi there

200 Litre Freshwater Tank
ph 7 - 7.5
Amonia - 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0

4 DP's
2 ottos
3 Norman's Lamp eyes
3 large wood shrimps
Two large pieces of bogwood with holes in
Tall Grasses at back with ferns and moss balls and several other plants at different levels and heights (well planted)
50 litre water change each week
Tank was set up in October 2012 - Fishless Cycled

I have been keeping DP's for just over a year now with no issues until recently. We brought them when they were quite small and have enjoyed watching them grow. We had two males and four females and apart from a couple of the females chasing each other a few times, everything has been fine. All the tank mates get on fine with each other and keep to themselves. Last week we found one of the males floating on the top of the tank and yesterday we removed a female and put her in our hospital tank. She was lethargic, laying on the top of the bogwood. She seemed to roll off and then tried swimming around but kept trying to lay on her side. We separated her and treated the tank with some Wormerplus that was safe for pufferfish in case it was internal parasites. This morning she had died unfortunately. I have seen one of the other DP's (our largest) opening her mouth several times recently as if yawning and this afternoon she seemed to shudder after eating. I may be looking too hard at them now as we are a bit paranoid to say the least. Any advice would be very helpful please.

0 nitrates? That does not sound right. Are you using test strips? With only 25% weekly water changes something is amiss with your readings

That tank is fairly understocked. It is possible...
Could you please answer ALL the other Qs up there in red?

We feed the DP's frozen mini bloodworm with a pipette, twice daily, which they always eat very well. As there are only two Ottos we occasionally use alage wafers or courgette (their favourite) bit always remove it after feeding time. Lampeyes eat the mini bloodworms and I have seen the shrimps tucking into them as well.
No products used in the tank.
Sorry I use test tube type kits but can get strips if that gives a better reading? The Nitrates/Nitrites test yesterday was clear though. It is a heavily planted tank as I said previously. We set it up so that everyone in the tank can hide if they needed to and the DP's we understood need to get out of eye-line with each other. They all get along really well to be honest and we were upset that this has happened.

We have just completed two staggered 50 litre water changes to make sure water is as good as it could be. Tonight we have lost another DP. This was our other male and he has a small red patch underneath on his white tummy and a little bit of something like white cotton wool around his beak. We don't know if this is because he was on the bottom of the tank for a while as we have been at work all day. They seemed fine this morning and all ate blood worms. Do we take the remaining three out and treat them for parasites or fungus in another tank, because of shrimps? But the Ottos and Lamp-eyes seem to be ok. Three dead in less than a week seems to indicate that something is amiss but we do not want to lose the shrimps as well by filling the tank with wormer etc.

Have you upped any CO2 dosing or fert. regime recently?

where did the bogwood come from?

I do not understand this tank at all. Exactly what do you mean by "no products are used in this tank"? Water conditioners are normally used with most public water supplies - what is your water source? Does the source water test give the same readings as the tank water?Plant supplements? If you removed the lights and looked down on the tank from above, what approximate percentage of the substrate is visible? Liquid-based test kits are far more accurate than test strips. How much light is used on the tank?

Most planted tanks require supplements (definitely nitrogen in some form, plus phosphate in some water supplies) and or very specialized substrates, or rather high stocking levels which provide detectable nitrate or other nitrogen forms.

The bog wood came from a reputable aquarium supplier and was pre-soaked in boiling water for a week before use...16 months ago!
We do not have Co2 or use nitrogen feed to feed our plants and they are all healthy and growing. The lighting is for daylight and plants which we have double checked with our local aquarium supplier and the lights are on a timer for 8 hours a day as we had an issue with algae caused by too much light. This seems to have worked. The substrate is smooth pea gravel which has been fine for them for the past 16 months and it is surface vacumed every week. We obviously use de-chlorinated water, by adding conditioning agent, which is brought up to temperature with a heater.
We are now down to two dwarf puffs but everyone else in the tank seems fine.

I have two books on keeping Puffer Fish, "Puffer Fish" by Chris Ralph and Aqualog's 'The Puffers of fresh and brackish waters by Dr Klaus Ebert as well as two general freshwater aquarium books. I refer to these often and have found them helpful. I also used to belong to the Dwarf Puffer Forum which I can't locate anymore which is sad.

I am sorry if my tank is difficult to understand.