The Puffer Forum

Hello, my name is Mark. And I got my figure 8 puffer fish about a month and a half ago from Petco. For the first month or so he was in a 55 gallon tank with a painted turtle juvenile about 3 inches in diameter. A mollie,. A Pentax Kili fish. And some Tetras.

He ate fine I basically had to give him frozen cubes(brine shrimp, bloodworms, beef heart) occasional snails or live shrimp…the cubes I would cut into small pieces. I would feed everybody else at first and then feed him last making sure to distract them so he could eat. I fed him twice a day. And his stomach would puff out a little bit each time.That worked really well his colors were always good he swam good he had plenty of hiding places. Everything seems fine and then about a week ago or so he started swimming up and down up and down in the corners of the tank. Occasionally the mollie (bigger mollie) would chase him and the other fish for food. The 55 gallon tank is fresh water… I did not know if he was getting upset because of the Molly occasionally chasing him or the freshwater.

I placed him in a 10 gallon tank by himself with the same water parameters I’ve had before for about a week now. Today the items I need to make it a brackish tank are coming in. I just hope I’m not too late or I don’t know if there is something else potentially going on.

I took a picture of his current enclosure which I put as much plants and things in as I could to make it kind of looks like his natural habitat. Maybe that’s too much I don’t know. He’s also currently only in a 10 gallon tank. I thought isolating him was more important than getting a 20 gallon long tank I also don’t know if that’s part of the problem. If I can get him to calm down I absolutely will invest and buy him a bigger tank. Unless you think that is the reason he is acting so upset. His color was always good until now he has pretty much faded to gray. It’s very sad I’d like to help him but I just don’t know how. I also tested the water for the five things and I can send pictures along with this message if you allow

Exact parameters are necessary here.

I tried to post pics of the tank setup and test strip I did today

I wanted to post the pictures because I feel like the colors are very subjective.
GH I would say is in between 120 and 180
KH I would say 80
PH about 7.0 fresh and 6.5 salt recently added (neutral regulator)
NO 2 0.5
NO 3 between 0 and 20

I also had bought sachem brackish salt. Follow the directions as best I could with my refractometer. I added 9 teaspoons to 3 gallons stirred it up for about an hour. Got it to register 1.006. I took out 3 gallons and added 3 gallons to his tank which now reads 1.004. Only up from 1.003 I have another 3 gallons that I added 4 tablespoons to and that is still only reading 1.006 on the refractometer. I was hoping maybe it would dilute more overnight but I don’t know yet

Ammonia?
Salt should raise the pH, not lower it.

Ammonia? What about it and how do I check for that?

API Liquid Test Kit

Also he does eat sporadically but not to the point where I use to see his stomach pop out like before. It’s very small amounts. I put 2 snails and 6 ghost shrimp in the tank yesterday and I can’t seem to locate them it could be because of all of the things in the tank or because he ate them but I was unable to see him eat anything.

And my water has gotten very cloudy which was never the case before in the larger tank. He is only been in that tank for about a week. And it is just a basic water filtration system not a canister system

0.50 ppm ammonia

Nitrate .20 ppm
Nitrite .25 ppm
Ph 7.6
Ammonia 0.50 ppm
According to petco

Well, there you go. You crashed the cycle by adding too much salt. Don't raise the SG >/002/week. Buy your own test kit so you can keep a closer eye on your parameters.
library/water-filtration/emergencycycle/