Its Just Been One Of Those Days.

[James B]

well got paid last night so i figured great lets go to the lfs. i only went in for a water test to see if i had sorted my nitrate problem out. got in there and it was stil painfully high. so seeing as the goldfish were leaving this week they had to go early as in this morning for their own good. off i went to the lfs for a chat about what was causing this and between me and my mate who works there we came up with my 4 year old fluval 104 filter. so having popped in for a chat i walked out witha a nice new tetra tec EX 600 filter (oh yeah lol) so after about 100 quid inc all the other bits i needed for a complete new start up i was feeling a bit . then spent 2 hours re doing the whole tank. but still looks great and will be nice and homely for my new figure of 8 puffer once im back from spain. yay lol

 

[CBBP]

wait you got ride for your goldfish? how many where in the tank? overstockign with goldfish causes nitrite problems.

 

[James B]

only 2 and they wernt huge apparently its common with the type of tubing on the older fluval filters because of the ridge type things in them they collect muck over time and makes the filter near on pointless because of all the toxins in the tube. since these problems came to light my lfs have near on stopped selling them

 

[CBBP]

Rena's don't do that do they? and poor goldfish.. all happy with you and then not at the torture shack.. haha.. how many gallons is the tank?

 

[James B]

tank was a 15 gallon more than big enough and i think its isolated to fluval filters but the one i havenow is 10 times better more filtration a included spray barand all the bits inside the filter are so well planned and layed out. In my honest opinion its a 10/10 for everything and well worth the money.

 

[Erised]

Technically a 15G was not 'more than big enough' for your goldies. People will claim that goldies need at least 20G for the first fish, and 10Gs per fish after that. Meaning you would have needed a tank twice the size to happily home them. Not having any goldfish myself I'm not sure how much of a difference in ammonia this would have made, but I think a fair bit.

Also, are you aware that now there's no fish in your tank the tank will go through a new cycle when you add new fish? Puffers are definatly not good fish to do a cycle with, they're very sensitive to water quality. On top of that, a figure 8 is a brackish water fish, so the normal freshwater cycle will have different bacteria in the water than you'll need for a brackish tank (that is after 1.005 I think, and you'll probably stay just below or at this). If you're aware of this already I apologise =)

--Edit--

I just looked through your posts, and it looks like you're very well up on your information already. I'm sorry if you took any offence to what I wrote before, really didn't mean for you to do so. I'm just a bit used to people not doing their research before buying a puffer, you're obviously not one of them

 

[James B]

no offence what so ever taken mate and i completely hear what your saying about the whole no research bit i have a leopard gecko and almost every time i am in the shop buying food for her someone is asking for a tortoise to hibernate and live in their garden in th U.K there reptiles they dont hibernate and the hibernation thing shortens their life tenfold. i have been told that the f8 was fresh water though? and as far as the cycle part goes i have started the tank off with a special bacteria stuff thats got all the neccasary chemicals etc in it.

 

[CBBP]

yes.. goldfish are just dirty dirty fish.. 10 glalon per fish rule even for small sfish jsut because they are so dirty.. after they are a year or two old that rule needs to be 15 gallons perfish because of their size.

 

[voo]

how much did you pay for the tetratec Ex600? i got the EX700 model for just £50 including delivery
I just wish they had included something to adjust the height of the spraybar in the tank though, otherwise great filter!!

 

[James B]

the ex 600 has only been out for about a month i think and i paid about 80 quid and so far so good

 

[b.c.f.c]

imo with good filteration goldfish need 10 gal and then another 5 gal for each gold fish added , so 2 goldfish would need a about a 15 gal.just my view though from what i have learnt.

 

[Erised]

They're low end brackish fish, usually kept in a SG of around 1.004/1.005. Many people start their figure 8 off in freshwater to slowly move onto the low ends of brackish though. Others do keep their F8 in fresh for live, but it's something that's in debate a lot. There's definatly 2 groups of figure 8 keepers. Those who claim you find them more in freshwater than brackish and that that makes them freshwater fish, and those that claim you'll see them more in brackish rather than freshwater. And obviously, they keep them in brackish water. If you do a google search, it will soon become obvious that there's quite some debates about it

I believe that most people on this forum however, keep them in low end brackish. It is ofcourse, completely up to you. I keep mine in brackish and he's been going strong (with very bright gorgeous colours) for over a year now. I'm aware that this is a very short time on a puffers life, but still quite a good indicator.

Have a look at the profile on these forums:
Figure 8 Puffer

 

[James B]

thanks mate questions answered there then. when i go to get him i will buy the hydrometer and marine salt and slowly (with ech waterchange) bring him up into low end brackish then. cheers James.