The Puffer Forum

I just got home from being out all weekend and when I opened the front door it was like a furnace in my house. It was 112 in here! It looks like the heat nuked up the temp in my tanks, the larger one didnt fair too badly but my 39 gallon was so hot my sticky thermometer was passed maxed out :/ when i turned on the lights I found one of my dwarfs dead and bloated I have one more dwarf , a kuhli and a pleco left in the tank.
I did a 50% water change and added melafix because the fish that are alive look pretty rough. The water still tests <20ppm nitrate but im worried if this will lead to a bacteria crash? will the high temp spikes kill my bacteria? I put a drip line of cooler water going into the tank, but how fast is too fast to get the temp down? also I have never had a puffer die before, do I need to worry about his tetropoison killing the fish i have left? any advice and wisdom you guys can pass my way is greatly appreciated.
Im so bummed this is my favorite tank, I finaly got all my plants looking so leafy and green my little fishes were so happy on friday RIP Percival puffer <3
*edit i forgot to add that my sticky thermometer reads up to 86, i didnt want to shock my little friends by cooling it too quickly so i made the temp of the water I added 82, even after doing the 50% change with lower temp water the thermometer is still reading maxed at 86. the cold water drip is really slow and comming from a 3 gallon bucket set inside a tub of icy water.

WOw im really sorry to hear that. I wuoldnt worry about tetrodotoxin, and i dont know about heat affecting bacterial colonies , but your nitrate is probably from the dead fish and plants being broken down. remove as much dead stuff as you can, and slowly lower the temps as you do not want them going into shock. once the temp is lowered then do a few more water changes . and hopefully all will be fine.

p.s what are the rest of your readings ?

Nitrite 0, ammonia 0 and ph 7.6 (man I need a brighter light in the livingroom), I dont know how long the temps have been spiked and I cant help but think even though my water is testing alright at the moment a crash is still incomming. The plants seem to have developed a bit of a yellow hue to them. The tank has been set up for about a year, I started it with biospira.

Hmmm... sounds like your tank is doing valiantly to me , after a dead fish and plants. is your test kit good ?

even though I guess I should be glad Im getting decent readings it sorta freaks me out more, I didnt test before my water change because i was so sure it was going to be bad i just wanted to dilute as quickly as possible. So what im wondering is have the bad readings just not happened yet? How long does it take for plants to release nitrate when they get fried? so far my plants look sad, but not dead, so can that mean they just arent finished dying or am I going to be lucky? I dont think percy had been dead for very long before i saw him he was bloated but his color was still good i guess that may not mean anything though.
Should i pull the plants to my snail tank to see how they recover? I wish I could do something other than feel guilty and watch the temp.

I would say just let it all cool down and see how it goes, everything depends on the circumstances and animal /.plants so me trying to speculate wouldnt do much good.

A mini fridge with a hole on each side the same size as my filter hosepipe with a couple of metres coiled inside, placed between the filter and inflow for my tank is doing a fantastic job here in Spain, with outside temps topping 45 degrees centigrade! The fridge I picked up from a camping store for about 40 euros though I'm sure they are cheaper stateside, and really is minimal work to convert it

---

Be sure to pluck off any dead/dying leaves from your plants. Once dying, they will not come back & they are just drawing energy from the plant. It should produce new shoots.

I have floated bags of ice in my tanks to cool them (before I had air conditioning). You could also get a cheap, clip on fan & blow the surface of the water to cool, like I'll be doing w/my sump.

reginator wrote:A mini fridge with a hole on each side the same size as my filter hosepipe with a couple of metres coiled inside, placed between the filter and inflow for my tank is doing a fantastic job here in Spain, with outside temps topping 45 degrees centigrade! The fridge I picked up from a camping store for about 40 euros though I'm sure they are cheaper stateside, and really is minimal work to convert it

That's a really good idea! I have an empty mini fridge kicking around too Hopefully here in Britain the temperatures won't get that hot outside to need to do that though, I can barely cope with the temperature currently in the 30s!

Missus wrote:That's a really good idea! I have an empty mini fridge kicking around too Hopefully here in Britain the temperatures won't get that hot outside to need to do that though, I can barely cope with the temperature currently in the 30s!

It's only gonna get hotter this week, they reckon it will hit 35 by wednesday.

wow sounds cool about the fridge, and the fans work , pp how fast does the water evaporate from there, a lot faster ? thank g-d it cooled off a bit here, looks quite nice now, i feel for you all !!!

most of my relative live in L.A. They tell me its been really hot, was only about 95 for a couple days ,and high 80s for a week in between, but very humid.

Cooling by evap works wonders, and for me, it about doubles the top-off I do.

Ahh thought so.