Sick Figure 8 Puffers

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

JamesPope

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jun 23, 2018
Messages
3
Location
New Zealand
Hi all, Thanks for all your help in advance. My current setup is a 33 Gal (125 L) Juwel tank with an all in one filter and heater unit, I run the tank at about 26 degrees with brackish water. Its only inhabitants three Figure 8 puffers roughly 5 months old. I've had the tank for roughly two weeks and put the puffers in without allowing the tank to cycle (The guy at the pet store told me this would be fine) I was sure to add Sea chem quick start Bacteria for the first week. After roughly two days I noticed The fish gasping for air on the top of the tank, I had worried about this happening as my assistant at the pet store told me I would not need an air pump as "Pufferfish were not Oxygen sensitive" I headed back to the store and purchased a pump and air stone and installed it all immediately. Eventually, the fish seemed a lot happier and swam around a lot more rather than just gasping at the top, I read online that this may also be due to Ammonia so I ran a test with my API test kit, it came back as 0.25 ppg so I decided to do a 50% water change and cut down their food a little bit. There was lots of food lying around there tank. all seemed well for the next few days until I decided to run another Ammonia test the test came back at 4.0ppg! I immediately did a 50% water change and added Ammo-Lock then ran another test the result was 2.0 ppg. I continued to add Ammo lock and sea chem Bacteria every two days. as well as a 50% water change every 5 days+, after 10 days I ran another Ammonia test, 8.0ppg ! i have no idea what to do I did another 50% water change, cleaned the filter sponges in tank water that I had removed added more Ammo lock and cut their food down a lot. The fish, however, seemed healthy un-usually they rarely seem to gasp at the top but very often swim up and down the tank sides over and over again. They also seem to sleep a lot. If anyone can help at all or has any questions please let me know! Thank you
 
Thank for your help, by agressive do you mean 75%? And should I completely Scrub down the tank and wash all the ornaments and gravel? I washed them in boiling water and rinsed them all several times before adding them to the tank. I spoke to my local pet store and they said i should be careful of how many water changes i do as it can stress the fish out enough to kill them?
 
First things first.. your lfs is kind of right but wrong.. the only way it will stress the fish is if there is a drastic difference in parameters. If you're swinging the sg and ph to much the fish will suffer. If you're using the same source water and it is consistent. Carefully mixing salt to maintain 1.01 or whatever brackish call for then you can do a 50%change every day. I'd change how ever much water it takes to keep ammonia barely detectable. Dosing prime daily will neutralize the harmful effects of the cycle so I highly suggest doing that as well. Ain't nothing wrong with a fish in cycle done correctly and responsibly. I've never done it any other way. Best thing you could do is go to the lfs and buy a seeded sponge filter or whatever media they run in their brackish tanks.
 
Thanks for your help, I will head to my local store tommorow and try get some of their seeded sponge. Ill keep doing the 50% changes for the next two weeks and check back here when im done for an update. Should i only be adding Prime? Or should i add some API ammo-Lock and some sea chem stability aswell? Thanks
 
Back
Top Bottom