Help! Figure 8 puffer pacing and not eating

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Cycling update
did a 20% WC the next day from the previous post

Amm - really seems to be 0 now!
Nitrite - 4
Nitrate - still high at 50 - 60
I'll continue WCs & monitoring,

Worried about the bacteria dying off while waiting for nitrite to go down though, since only two (now three) snails were put in and their bioload really is minimal.
 
Nitrates are high considering they were 5ish on Thursday. I’m thinking the test kit is not reading properly. Are there any plants in the tank? They won’t make much of a dent in nitrates but the more biological material there is all the better for supporting the bacteria. Having the snails is producing some bioload so you should be able to maintain a population of bacteria.

I’d do a big big water change to get the nitrate down to 20ish and see what the nitrites looking like at that point. Don’t really wanna add fish while nitrite is still accumulating, should really be oxidised to nitrate as quickly as it’s produced.
 
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Small plants, I opted for a much lengthier tank than the standard just for the puff, so shorter/smaller plants to make sure there's good swimming space. Two java fern, 4 java moss, all tied to driftwood.

Yeah I've read that it should convert quickly so not too sure what's going with my tank!
Water after 75% WC:
Nitrite - 2
Nitrates - 30
I'll do a 20% to 30% WC tomorrow.

It's possible! I'd have to cut a bit of the spongey filter for that though, I could also transfer over some of the biomedia filter balls too.

I was looking into getting a salt water test kit (it's one month delivery time on amazon omg), and i contacted a few sellers about the differences in result for brackish/salt water and freshwater. They said Ammonia and general hardness would be the ones that salt water could affect depending on the salinity, everything else should be fine.
 
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Yeah it’s weird, the test is consistent at least as you’ve done a 75% water change and nitrite/ nitrate have gone down about that. I’ve got the API salt and fresh kits but can’t recall if they’re the same reagents in both. I know the api one is terrible for giving a false positive for ammonia in saltwater (mine always tests about 0.5 for freshly made up water).

Out of curiosity have you tested freshly made up water before a water change?
 
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Ammonia yes, it looked like 0.1 barely, i suspect because the water is slightly brackish at 1.004SG. I did test the water before I added salt and started the cycle in the actual tank and it was definitely 0, yellow coloured no slight tinge.

I also did a quick search and the tap water in my area averages less than 5ppm nitrates, so it's likely something in the cycle that made it so high so consistently.

Did a 20% WC and waited a couple hours.
Nitrite - 2
Nitrate - 30
I'll stick to bigger WCs from now on
 
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piffpuffer said:
Ammonia yes, it looked like 0.1 barely, i suspect because the water is slightly brackish at 1.004SG. I did test the water before I added salt and started the cycle in the actual tank and it was definitely 0, yellow coloured no slight tinge.

I also did a quick search and the tap water in my area averages less than 5ppm nitrates, so it's likely something in the cycle that made it so high so consistently.

Did a 20% WC and waited a couple hours.
Nitrite - 2
Nitrate - 30
I'll stick to bigger WCs from now on
Click to expand...

Have you tested the water after you’ve added the salt but before you’ve added it to the tank?
 
piffpuffer said:
I'll just do a WCs then :) Thank you both! I got some trumpet snails from my LFS when they gave me a bag of bladder snails, i might put them in after the WC. I've read they're good for the sand as well since they burrow a lot. My concern is that when he eventually moves over, he'll go crazy with overeating snails, but I wonder if he might leave them alone because they're a bit big for my puff to eat and the last time I tried to give him a small trumpet snail, he couldn't bite through the shell. Have you had any experience with bigger snails/tough shelled snails living with puffs? almost everything I've read, puff destroy everything they live with! I could remove the snails before putting the puff in but i suspect i'll miss some buried in the sand or some eggs.
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Get rid of the Malaysian Trumpet Snails. Most puffers never figure out how to eat them since the shells are too hard. Some might learn to nip at the fleshy part but that won’t kill the snails. Rarely, a puffer may learn to shuck them out of their shells but that’s not the norm.

Those trumpet snails hide under the sand, give birth to hundreds of snails; and become an unsightly mess. Setup another tank with pond or ramshorn snails and neocaridina but unless you have a mass of them, they won’t breed fast enough to keep up with the puffer
 
phreeflow said:
Get rid of the Malaysian Trumpet Snails. Most puffers never figure out how to eat them since the shells are too hard. Some might learn to nip at the fleshy part but that won’t kill the snails. Rarely, a puffer may learn to shuck them out of their shells but that’s not the norm.

Those trumpet snails hide under the sand, give birth to hundreds of snails; and become an unsightly mess. Setup another tank with pond or ramshorn snails and neocaridina but unless you have a mass of them, they won’t breed fast enough to keep up with the puffer
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Yes I started to remove them after sleeping on it. There's only one left in there, waiting for him to come up from the sand or until i do my next WC! I've got another tank cycling right now for shrimp & ramshorn to breed
 
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