Messed Up Big Time! Or Didnt I?

[Bomberman]

well i have had dp's before in a ten gallon tank(3 female 1 male) and they died of abotu a year... then today when i went to the pet store i saw some leopard puffer fish(or spotted) at my local Petco. i've been looking at them for a while and decided to get some. i got 2 not sure how long i had them maybe 4- 5 hours then when i wne tto go check up on them hey were both dead!!!!!!! im just so clueless on how this could have happend??!!?? im thinking it was the fact that i might have had to much aquarium salt in there for them or it was my brothers driving that made them get stressed out. after the dp's died i put in some aquarium salt every weekednd after water changes and sometimes in mid week trying to keep some salt in there for a brackish setup. pls help me! should i wait and do water changes or can i go and get more fish? i checked all of my tank water parameters and they all seemed normal. I just did a 25% water change soi hope that helps . thanks and any help wilkl be greatly appreciated!

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

well i have had dp's before in a ten gallon tank(3 female 1 male) and they died of abotu a year... then today when i went to the pet store i saw some leopard puffer fish(or spotted) at my local Petco. i've been looking at them for a while and decided to get some. i got 2 not sure how long i had them maybe 4- 5 hours then when i wne tto go check up on them hey were both dead!!!!!!! im just so clueless on how this could have happend??!!?? im thinking it was the fact that i might have had to much aquarium salt in there for them or it was my brothers driving that made them get stressed out. after the dp's died i put in some aquarium salt every weekednd after water changes and sometimes in mid week trying to keep some salt in there for a brackish setup. pls help me! should i wait and do water changes or can i go and get more fish? i checked all of my tank water parameters and they all seemed normal. I just did a 25% water change soi hope that helps . thanks and any help wilkl be greatly appreciated!

First off the ten gallon is nowhere near large enough for even a single GSP (leopard puffer) granted your's may have been juveniles but they can be agressive to eachother especially when they feel cramped, it's not your fault, I'm certain that the people at petco didn't tell you that! Second, they don't use aquarium salt in their water, brackish water consists of fresh water mixed with marine water so the salt we use is the exact same salt used for marine fishes (saltwater aquariums) I'm almost certain that Petco sold you some doc wellfishes aquarium salt in a little paper milk carton right? Were you using a hydrometer to measure the specific gravity of the water when you added your salt because if you simply "put in some aquarium salt on the weekends" without keeping track of the quantity in your water you may have inadvertently poisoned your fish.

I'm terribly sorry to hear about what happened, (if you still have the fishes bodies and it hasn't yet been two weeks you should be able to return them for store credits) stick around here on this forum there's tons of very knowlegable keepers who'd be more than happy to help guide you to a proper setup of a brackish environment for a GSP or some other puffer or brackish water fish that will suit you. Don't give up just yet.

SLC

 

[Bomberman]

ok well i took them back today and they gave me the same speech they do everytime "your waters great!! i dont know what thye problem could be?" and i did buy the aquarium salt in a paper carton. Dooh well i did do a 25% water change and when i was putting the water in it was doing a fuzy hasing thing like when you put the salt in the first time without previuos salt added! well is that the problem? to much salt? well thank you for the reply !

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

ok well i took them back today and they gave me the same speech they do everytime "your waters great!! i dont know what thye problem could be?" and i did buy the aquarium salt in a paper carton. Dooh well i did do a 25% water change and when i was putting the water in it was doing a fuzy hasing thing like when you put the salt in the first time without previuos salt added! well is that the problem? to much salt? well thank you for the reply !

I can't say for sure if the problem was too much salt in the water. Very possible that the fish were simply not in good shape from petco (usually the case with puffers because almost noone knows how to feed or care for them). Either way you do need to use marine salt and a hydrometer to set up a brackish tank in the future, the aquarium salt they sold you is used in freshwater tanks when medicating for illness.

Any more questions, feel free to ask!

SLC