The Puffer Forum

Hello,

I recently finished an 8 week fishless tank cycle and introduced 6 bumblebee gobys and a figure 8 puffer into my cycled 20 gallon tank. It has been less than 24 hrs and my ammonia levels are 0ppm but my nitrites have been steadily increasing all day. They are currently at .50 ppm using an API master test kit.

I did a 70% water change and that helped temporarily but my nitrites seem to be increasing again. Up to .50 ppm after a few hours.

Is there anything I can do to help reduce the stress on my fish? I think my tank is going through another mini cycle.
My band-aid solution was another partial water change 25% and API aquarium salt, amquel plus, and novaqua water conditioner to temporarily reduce the stress on the fish while the nitrites are consumed by the nitrobacter.

are there any ill effects of using these products together? Does anyone recommend a better solution? I am concerned my figure 8 puffer will be ill effected by the products. I don't want to make a mess of things so I thought I would ask here.

All help is extremely appreciated!

Is it FW now? You could do an 80% WC & add Tatra Safestart to the filter.

Ok the nitrites are now under control.

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 10 ppm

This morning I noticed that my figure 8 has a white spot on his back fin. It looks more like a tiny line than a dot. He also appears to have either a flesh wound or a worm on the left side of this mouth. His right eye also seems a bit cloudy. I got him from the pet store 4 days ago and I was also fighting nitrites at .5 ppm and below for the first few days. Can anyone help diagnose this? Puffer seems fine and he's swimming around and exploring. He has only eaten one live snail since I brought him home, and that was yesterday morning. I hope my little guy is ok!