Help- Lost my Green Spotted Puffers

I am saddened to say I lost my puffers last night some time. I did the weekly water change on Thursday they were doing great. I added some Hornwort plant from my other "lighter" brackish tank and within a day something started going wrong. The plant started dying. I pulled the plant Friday night and did a 50% water change. I spent quite a bit of time trying to get the needles from the plant out with my net. Saturday morning they looked good and were up and swiming. Not eating very well, but color was good.

Saturday night they started crashing after I tried to feed them. They ate very little. I tested the water and it looked ok but I did another 50 % water change & I retested the water and everything looked good. Dip stick- Nitrate 0, Nitrate 0, Harness maybe 300 (but should be ok for sw), Alkalinity near 200 (ok for sw), PH 7.8 (ok- could be a little higher) the Salinity was 1.005 - I had just raised it from 1.004 to 1.006. I also opened up the power head and tried to get the oxygen level up. One was gasping at the top of the tank.

My husband thinks the plant as it was dying pulled all the oxygen making the water "stick" It kind of makes sense- but I was wondering if anyone else has any thoughts. I still have some shrimp alive in there.

Thanks- Julie

I will take some of my water down to the lfs and see if they can test it out and get different results than me.

With the Nitrates and Nitrites at zero, it seems like a just started tank. Ammonia may have spiked - though that should not have affected the plant. Perhaps the plant died from the change of salinity and caused the onset of ammonia rise. Then with your aggressive water changes the bacteria population crashed.

Usually the first sign of an ammonia spike is the fish looking listless and not eating. Then they begin gasping at the top. Since you did not test for ammonia - this is only speculation. Though I've found my freshwater shrimp more able to handle an ammonia spike than the fish in the same tank.

Test for ammonia level. If its high, purchase soom condensed nitrifying bacteria and double treat it.

I did increase the salinity this last week (as I have been doing since I purchased them). That makes sense. This is a perfect example of "if it's not broke don't fix it".... I should have left them in mildly brackish- they were very happy. I killed them with kindness- and one of my favorite plants.

I will be taking a sample in. I was thinking they were showing signs of ammonia poisoning- thus the extra water changes....

The tank has been running since November and I have slowly been upping the salinity- weekly.... I wil speak with the lfs (only sw specialist in town). I "was" going to convert these guys to sw from brackish over the course of the summer.

I have read mostly to increase the salinity each week- but today I found an article on increasing over the course of a year. This is virgin territory for me and I am very confused.

Julie

The only SW creatures I've ever had luck with is brine shrimp. Can't help you there...

You said fish were gasping. When did you add new fish last? Sounds like gill flukes.

Puffers are brackish meaning they can go salt to fresh very rapaidly and back. Bays go from salt to fresh very fast after a large rainfall. With brackish fish if in doubt take them to salt. Means that salt water is better than fresh when fish are stressed.

I'm kind of curious on the ammonia reading myself and your temp. Zero NitrAtes is also interesting.

Hornwort is a very finiky plant I have found. Doesn't seem to like being moved very much.

I had them in the same tank since I purchased them about 10 weeks ago. They have been in a salinity of 1.004 for a couple weeks when I bumped them up to 1.006 (I was shooting for 1.005 but I mucked it up). The temp was 84'. I only had dip sticks and a liquid PH test kit. I will invest in the full liquid test kit before I purchase any more fish. The dip sticks appear 0- but it could be there were traces of nitrates and nitrites. The tank water looked super polished- I get compliments on how great it looks.

There were no flukes, no ick, they were healthy little creatures- growing well and they crashed fast.

I am pretty sure I poisoned the water with the plant and the salinity change. To make matters worse when I was thinking there was a amonia problem (the one little guy hanging out at the top gasping- the other guy looked much better but he was not as active as usual) I took out my sponge filter and rinsed it and I took out the filter media in the HOB and rinsed it. I wanted to get rid of the needles from the plant. I panicked.

I didn't make it to the lfs yesterday I had to work. I will take water down today when I go out.

I did discover 3 of the ghost shrimp in the tank and 1 loaded with eggs. They came out looking for food as well as 1 live snail (an escape artist snails). I found another ghost shrimp in my goldfish tank loaded with eggs- interesting that they could handle such vastly different water parameters.


I am definately going to take some time before I add anymore fish into the tank. I really enjoyed the puffers and was looking forward to setting up my first marine tank.


Julie

I don't think the plant did anything that bad to the water. I foul tanks with melting hornwort all the time! I have a brackish tank and it is hit or miss with plants, even ones that are supposed to be tolerant.

What I'm more suspicious about is a lack of biobugs from fresh to brackish. There are different bacteria that grow to cycle the tank in a FW than there are in BW, and the tank was essentially cycling with these puffers. Puffers don't tolerat a cycle very well.

Your repeated PWCs to try to save them (that is exactly what I would have done, BTW) removed the signs of the cycle, so that's why the test results were so clean. This is just my supposition, miles and miles away from the tank in question, lol!

I thought the tank was cycled since it has been up since early November- FW first then we moved the puffers in and started the braskish. I have been doing weekly 50% water changes since that is what I read to do and they were only in a 20 but it had overfiltration (I am/or was looking for a larger craigs list special).... I wanted to move them into a 55 or better by June.

Plus I took out the gravel a few weeks ago and put in the heavy seeded sand (I have since read that the pre-seeded sands & gravels are an expensive joke btw if they are bagged and sitting on a shelf).

Live and learn.

The tank being up and running does not cycle it - fish waste cycles it - so unless it has had fish in it with zero ammonia, zero nitrite and some measurable nitrate then it was not cycled.

Seeded sands can't sustain bacterial colonies without a steady diet of fish waste and oxygen, so it could get things started but not cycle the tank. The "getting started" part of the cycle is the part that is so hard on fish.

You may know all this already so I apologize if I'm oversimplifying things!

Thanks TG- your thoughts and input are appreciated -simple is my middle name. I am familiar with the hobby but have been out of it for a few years. I am new to brackish tanks for sure.

There have been fish in the tank constantly. I started it with my Fancy Goldfish. I went trhough the "spike" doing daily 25% water changes about 3 weeks into the cycle- Late November early December. When I recieved more Goldfish for Christmas from a fishy friend I upgraded that tank for them and converted this tank to the Puffers (a couple weeks after Christmas). This tank hasn't been empty since I bought it, but I did change the filter media at least once and I changed the substrate to something cooler (since my gravel got ugly after mixing colors).

I did get my water checked this afternoon and the guy at the good fish store said everything was "premo"- nitrates & nitrites were low (not zero), no ammonia, ph close to 8, and salinty at 1.005 (just like I thought). He even checked the chlorine said it was negative.

He said he has seen some strange things happen due to plants (off gassing was the term he used). When I add up the recent substrate change, water changes, filter rinsing etc. I can see how I could have killed off the beneficial bacteria- however there is no ammonia so I have to deduce that it was the plant ot a combination of factors.

I am going to let it cylce for a few days then do another water change. I might throw in one of my Mollies and see if she makes it. I am a little gun shy right now.

Thanks for adding your thoughts on the matter.

Julie

I think what I'd do is put in a couple of mollies and leave them be for about 3 months - honestly that is the magic number - if you can stand to wait!

During that time get your salinity where it needs to be and the mollies can ride out the storm just dandy. By then, your salinity and the cycle will be just right, and the tank will be plum ready for puffers. Patience is what is in order, and that is always the hardest thing that I have had to learn in this hobby. I still have a very hard time with this so I wish you the best of luck! Tanks need to be seasoned, so to speak. Mollies can totally get you where you need to be.

A bunch of snails and ghost shrimps would also cycle it. And if you go with Nerite snails - you can go ahead and go brackish from the get-go. The snails produce a much heavier bacteria load and are usually considered quite 'messy' with the ammonia. Almost as good as goldfish for priming the cycle.

2SciCrazed wrote:

A bunch of snails and ghost shrimps would also cycle it. And if you go with Nerite snails - you can go ahead and go brackish from the get-go. The snails produce a much heavier bacteria load and are usually considered quite 'messy' with the ammonia. Almost as good as goldfish for priming the cycle.

Great advice!