The Puffer Forum

My water levels are fine, my temperature is fine, my salinity is fine, and I check it way more then I should all day long so it isn't any kind of shock. But my Spiny Box Puffer that I just got is laying at the bottom of the tank, occasionally getting up to swim around or look at me but then he goes back to the same spot. I got him two days ago and the thing that bothers me is when he breaths his little body moves a little with every breath when hes lying at the bottom of the tank, the only thing that I can't understand is he sick or is he depressed or tired or something? But before I woke up he was swimming. Is this normal? The thing I did today though was a 50% water change to decrease salinity levels, but I accidentally went too low so I added instant ocean directly into the tank, not much mind you only several spoon fulls, so i'm assuming that it is okay to add instant ocean in my tank WITH my fish in it too? Otherwise I don't know why he is doing this everything is perfect...

Hi please answer all the questions above in red so we can help you, you should never add salt directly to the tank

bertie 83 wrote:Hi please answer all the questions above in red so we can help you, you should never add salt directly to the tank

fed thawed squid

in the last two days ive done a 25% water change and today a 50%

I just put in some type of white rock from the fish store, they told me not to put live rock in and to put this white rock for now which looks similar but I don't know what its called ( lots of mini holes in it too and they told me its just a dead rock with a lot of surface area for good bacteria to grow. )

aquarium set up for 2 days, 50 gal, cycled with that instant cycling bacteria

My puffer is the only guy in there, no nitrites no nitrates salinity is 1.023 with no ammonia and ph is 8.4

bertie 83 wrote:Hi please answer all the questions above in red so we can help you, you should never add salt directly to the tank

I'm thinking 50% was too much water change for a new fish? I only did it because salinity shot up to 1.028 which i thought was too high for him. So I dropped the salinity down to normal .23.. i don't know if maybe I did this too quickly? Plus adding in the salt directly was a very dumb move and I felt dumb right after and you've confirmed it to myself. The temp is at 82 also.

Have you kept a marine tank before? Have you done any research on keeping marine? Please post ALL the results of your water testing: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH. This is very important! "Fine" won't do here.

What "bacteria product" did you use? Did you add it right before adding the fish?

He's dead.

puffer94 wrote:He's dead.

Sorry to hear that mate. If you're gona get another saltwater puffer make sure you get Live Rock and a good skimmer. You dont need to get an external/internal filter as its the live rock that filters your water. If you dont want to do all that then maybe a Freshwater puffer will be better for you.

I will move to a hardier salt water creature, maybe a snowflake eel or something else. I'll practice more before I return to puffers and when I do I won't start with a spiny... All I know is it was not to do with parasites or with eating coral, and I know he didn't starve... Maybe he had low oxygen? I don't really know.. the hardness when tested was high at like 450 - 475 but I don't think that would of killed him. Either way I'm going to do some more reading and acquire a hardier salt water animal and return to puffer fish later on.

Puffers are extremely hardy! Until you get down the ways of keeping any wet creature,you will continue to find them dead.

I"m not sure your lfs is giving you great advice here... you put a puffer in a tank that was not cycled.

First you need to get live rock and a good powerhead and cycle the tank, then you can add fish.

Your salinity was too high, too low and then you put salt directly in the tank and might have possibly salt burned him. You need to let salt age for about a day in a bucket with a heater and a powerhead.

How big is your tank?

You should really read up on cycling the tank, how the beneficial bacteria and live rock works, and the basics of keeping a saltwater tank before putting more fish in there and killing them and wasting your money.

I really don't think that you should rely on your lfs, please do you own research and then try again Salt water is not hard but there is a lot to learn... which is one of the great things about the hobby imo