NOLANANO

Just purchased some actual Oyster Flakes off Amazon. I wish I had realized the poultry grit wasn't oyster shells before opening the bag. I now have 5 pounds of useless pebbles. Maybe I can use it in the garden or something.

It is. Before I get flamed, Let me start by saying that I have a single tank and its been cycled for a few years so I don't use any method often BUT I do prefer the fish in cycle where you test the water daily and do water changes as needed. To me its the "dumb dumb" method that is very easy to follow and see results. You have the ammonia source in your small amount of fish (in my last case it was 3 endlers) and you can easily see in the test tubes whether or not a water change is needed. It is a pain in the butt changing water every day or every other day but its pretty fool proof. I also used Fritze Zyme after every water change to try to add some beneficial bacteria. I have never tried the liquid ammonia so maybe that would be easier but the ghost feeding method always seemed vague to me. Based on research, I could never figure out how much I should be ghost feeding and when to add more food, etc. Just didn't seem definitive enough for my liking and like most, I want fish in my tank as quicky as possible, not 2 months of feeding nothing hoping that bacteria begin to grow.

1) This will be my first try. Dan from Dan's fish did a video on making what he calls artificial snails with repashy and crushed oyster shells due to the fact that Amazon Puffers are too small to crush snail shells. He said it took a week of putting the repashy in the tank before his puffers would eat it. I am trying the grub pie version because I have read that Amazon puffers are mostly insectivores so I figure this would be the best bet at getting them to recognize the repashy as food and then I could mix and match other repashy mixes to get a more balance diet. My plan is to feed a frozen or live food every other day and rotate with the repahsy on days they dont get frozen or live foods. BUT I have to get them to accept the repashy before we get there. 2) Yeah I read the same. I plan to use these as an occasional treat more than anything. They have a hard exoskeleton so right now I am feeding them to try to wear down the beaks a bit while I figure out the repashy thing. If I can get them on the repashy, I will cut back on the mealworms and make them a holiday treat. ( I like getting my dog and my fish treats for the major holidays). 3) I plan to get like 10 ghost shrimp and see if I can invoke their hunter spirit with them. Give them something to look for in the plants and structure. I am not sure if they will actually go for the ghost shrimp though as there is already an Amano shrimp in the tank and they haven't hunted it. The Amano shrimp is older and possible just too big for them. Maybe the ghost shrimp will be a better option. If they don't eat the shrimp, at least I will have a little clean up crew. 4) This is a good idea. I had these cubes a while back. I will have to look for some at my LFS. 5) That is very sad news indeed. Were there signs it was going south? or did you wake up one morning and he was gone? I have the luck of having multiple so when one succumbed to unknown issues, I have 4 others to fall back on. The first few days I also felt a little bad for my puffers as they glass surfed the whole time and kind of aggravated their tankmates but they have really settled into their new home. While they do glass surf a decent amount, they also explore their environment a good bit as well and have learned that seeing me is possibly a dinner bell. This helps because if they are glass surfing when I walk up, they stop and swim over to see if I have anything. If I just sit in my chair in front of the tank, they usually start exploring. My guess is that seeing me makes "their mouth water" and if I don't feed then they start hunting. but IDK, I'm just guessing. Whatever the reason, I like the behavior because I get to see them be interesting when I sit and watch them instead of just glass surfing.

This is my fear. Unless someone can definitively say that its safe, I am probably going to order actual crushed oyster shells and throw the poultry grit out.

I mixed together done Repashy grub pie (insectivore diet) and what I thought was crushed oyster shells when I purchased it but turns out it’s something called poultry grit. Below is a picture of the ingredients. I haven’t put it in my tank yet, do these ingredients seems ok? I don’t think much of any of the grit will actually be ingested. The puffers will just scrape the repashy off the rocks and hopefully grind their teeth on it. I plan to use a feeding bowl and remove whatever isn’t eaten within an hour or so. im tagging a few people that seem to have a broad range of knowledge. @mountaintoppufferkeeper @Lennie @Odd Duck @anewbie @Guppysnail @tolstoy21

Day 10 update: Beefheart might be made of puffer crack. I’ve never seen all 4 attack anything like they attacked frozen beef heart. 4 big fat bellies when they were through. I’m very happy to have something they love that I know I can get all 4 to eat. i also tried live meal worms this morning. I dropped 3 in and at first my rummynose tried to eat them but couldn’t break through their exoskeleton and eventually gave up. The meal worms settled at the bottom and I just left them there to see what would happen. When I returned 20 minutes later, only 1 remained and one of the puffers was going at it. I’m not sure if he ate all 3 or if a few different puffers each had one but it was encouraging that meal worms could eventually work for these guys. It’s also a crunchy food that will help trim the beaks a bit. I need to figure out a way to get some greens in the diet. I may try the veggie repashy if I can get them to eat the grub pie repashy. Which I will try tomorrow.

Day 8 update: it’s a sad day, it’s a bad day. We lost one of our guys and we are down to 4 puffers. Let’s all take a moment of silence for our loss…. I'm not sure exactly what happened. I think they were all fine and looking healthy and I also think I had 5 live puffers when I began my water change to dilute the meds. I’m not sure though cuz I didn’t count but I definitely didn’t see any puffers floating. I’m not sure if the water change itself stressed him or if he was just pinned behind something so I couldn’t see him dead but he was a floating, lifeless bubble. I netted him and tried to look for any sign of life but he was gone. the other 4 are all healthy but I did notice that I have 2 that gorge themselves until their belly is really full and then 2 that don’t eat as much. I did make sure to watch all 4 eat at least one blood worm though. I don’t think the 2 eating less have overgrown teeth but it’s kind of hard to tell because they are so small. The mouths of the 2 eating less don’t look any different than the 2 that eat a ton. I will continue to monitor this and see what happens.

Amazon.com: AmScope 120X-1200X 52-pcs Kids Beginner Microscope STEM Kit with Metal Body Microscope, Plastic Slides, LED Light and Carrying Box (M30-ABS-KT2-W),White : Toys & Games This is relatively cheap but based on the pics in the reviews, I think it might work well enough for me. Am I just wasting my money if I buy a kit this cheap?

what I am interested in is seeing the microorganisms living in the water, I don't need it to be so powerful that I can see the cell makeup of those organisms. How much magnification would I need for that?

How many here have microscopes for their acquariums? Is it just fun to look at what's in the water or is it useful for other reasons? Can I get a decent enough microscope in the $100 range?

That makes sense. I just don't want to wait too long and allow any parasites that may hatch from eggs to lay more eggs before the para cleanse can kill them. The fish all seem healthy. I did see one flashing like day 2 of the med trio being added in but it was brief and I haven't seen any such behavior since. This might be a dumb question but is flashing a guaranteed sign of an issue or do some fish do it once or twice to kind of scratch their back?

Day 6 update: No pics or anything today, just want to provide an update about my observations thus far: 1) The puffers are doing great, healthy and swimming around. They still glass surf some but its methodical, not frantic and its not all the time so I am happy with that. I ordered a small power head that I will put in the tank to try to increase the flow for them. 2) I think the cories are settling a bit but they definitely were not fans of their new tankmates right away. Whether it was being chased or seeing other fish glass surf, they began glass surfing quite a bit and were found swimming in the middle and upper portions of my tank much more often than they had in the past 2 years that I have owned them. I think they are starting to settle and calm down but I still see the behavior a bit more than previously. I have seen the puffers chase them off when they get in their space but they don't follow the cories, just run them off and go back to whatever they were doing. 3) One of the puffers has started chasing my Pearl Gourami around a bit. This one seems worse than the cories because he does in fact chase the gourami. So far there are no visible fin nips so my hope is that he will lose interest in time. I am prepared to re-home the Gourami if it doesn't seem like its happy or if it seems like the chasing will never stop. This is the fish I was worried about most when I got the Puffers so its not really a surprise. 4) After I finish their prophylactic treatment for parasites I will start the project of introducing new foods to them because right now, I can only get them to eat bloodworms. Its not like I have tried much more than that given that they have been fasting during the majority of their treatment anyway but based on how the frozen mysis shrimp went, I think there will be a learning curve. I am going to try both ghost shrimp and live meal worms and see how it goes. I think live foods might get them to branch out a bit more. If they don't eat the shrimp then I am ok with having some pet ghost shrimp in the tank anyway. I also want to start introducing Repashy mixed with crushed oyster shells. Dan from Dan's fish said he just dropped some in with other foods everyday and within 7-10 days, the puffers started to eat it. I think I will try to use a feeding bowl for this as I don't want oyster shells all over the place. At least at the beginning because I am sure I will have to pull out uneaten repashy for the first week or 2. I want the repashy and oyster shells to work because I dislike the look of snails and don't want them in my tank. No offense to anyone who like snails, its just different strokes for different folks.

@Pepere Tomorrow makes 7 days from the start of my Med trio treatment. According to the ACO instruction article, after 7 days I need to do a water change. BUT I want to do the second round of Paracleanse to make sure there are no parasites left in these puffers. My question: do I do a 30% water change and then add the second dose of paracleanse? Or do I add it and hold off on the water change for 5 more days? My secondary question is that the paracleanse instructions on the package said that I should add the second dose after 5 days. Today is day 6 (oops), should I add the second dose today or wait until tomorrow so I can do a water change prior to adding it?

The long fin one is a male. That doesn’t necessarily mean that none of the others are males but that one is definitely a male.

You have at least one male depending on if these pics have repeats in them. The last pic looks like a mated pair with the male on the left and female on the right. Second and third from the bottom looks like 2 females. fourth and fifth from the bottom looks like 3 females. 6th from bottom looks like a male. 7th and 8th from the bottom looks like 1 male and 2 female. top pic looks like a male in the front. Can't see the fins of the other ram in that pic but I'd guess female.

Does anyone know the reasoning behind not feeding the tank during the Med Trio treatment? Today is day 5 and I am fighting the urge to feed the tank. I think knowing the reasoning of not feeding would greatly help me resist this urge. @AllFishNoBrakes @Pepere

Day 3 update: I was planning on waiting a week to do an update but there was a major breakthrough. The glass surfing has greatly decreased and the puffers are now exploring their environment. I think they are hungry cuz we haven’t fed them since day 1 and it mostly looks like they are hunting. The only fish having issues with the puffers at this point is the cories. They don’t seem to love the puffers and are much more agitated than they used to be pre puffers. I havent seen any damage done but I have seen a puffer or 2 chase the cories away and one even nipped at a Cory but didn’t pursue it once it went away. I will monitor this situation and remove the cories if it doesn’t settle or fish start getting hurt.

does med trio cause cloudy water? I am 2 days in and my tank is as cloudy as its ever been.

I have no idea if this is actually the case but could it be too many fish in a small area? I know fish will sometimes get territorial in a small space even if they aren't really an aggressive species.

Post | Pufferfish Worldwide (pufferfishenthusiastsworldwide.com) I came across this very detailed Amazon Puffer Care guide and thought I would add it to this thread. This was buried in a thread from 2022 on the Puffer fish forum that Lennie suggested. Also wanted to link this med trio thread I started because it answered a bunch of questions: Med Trio Question - General Discussion - C.A.R.E. (aquariumcoop.com) Below is the actual Med Trio Article. Figured it'd be nice to have it all in one place in case someone is looking for it on this thread: How to use the quarantine medication trio | Aquarium Co-Op FAQs (aquariumcoop.com)

Hikari makes a crustacean sinking pellet that I used for a while before I accidentally killed all my shrimp.

Lennie, I appreciate you friend! Always going out of your way to provide good sources!

One of them is much more curious than the others. I would say that he is on the smaller side so maybe its a pecking order thing but one has been checking out the other fish and really exploring the aquarium. The other 4 have mostly been glass surfing. Its kind of strange because its a methodical glass surfing, not a frantic one. BUT my lone Gold ram thinks its a puffer fish now. She has taken a liking to her new tank mates. She follows them around and inspects their behavior. Its not aggressive at all and sometimes the puffers will nip at her to back her off but she just backs up a little bit and keeps inspecting. From what I have watched and read; I need to get these guys past the glass surfing stage before I see much social behavior. Morning Update: I started the med trio this morning and will not be feeding for the next 4-7 days. hopefully they will be more accepting of foods other than blood worms after they fast for a bit. I want to try live meal worms but kind of think I should try brine shrimp first to see if I can get them to eat something other than worms. But maybe I just need to try blood worms again? I think I need them to recognize that I provide the food so they will come right up to me. I think then I will have a better chance at getting them to try new foods. If anyone has thoughts, please let me know.

Amazon Puffers Evening check in: the puffers have been glass surfing quite a bit but I’ve noticed that it’s gotten better as the day has gone on. Not as frantic and they will explore occasionally. I linked a video above which is just a cut up of short videos I took all day. The puffers were definitely much more interested in the food during the second feeding. I fed both frozen bloodworms and frozen brine shrimp. They only ate the bloodworms and completely ignored the shrimp. We will have to make an effort to get them onto other foods but I am happy they have at least one thing they will eat. One of them is, idk if braver is the word, but more interested in exploring for sure. I saw him hunting for lack of a better term. Snails are kind of expensive around me as far as a food source but do y’all think that they would eat ghost shrimp? Im just trying to find a way to encourage the hunting behavior. I’ve read they are mostly bug eaters in the wild so maybe it won’t work but I might give it a shot.

Few Hour Update: I fed blood worms about 30 minutes after they were released and only 2 or 3 of them ate at all and honestly it may have been the same one I saw 3 separate times. I saw 2 graze on a worm or 2 but only 1 had a fat belly after the worms. None of them came to the cube to eat it while it was still frozen, the ones that ate just happened to be in the right place at the right time as some worms drifted by. Now there is a lot of glass surfing going on. They are all on the left side of the tank where the flow is the weakest just going up and down. Some are doing it casually while others are doing it frantically. When I walk up to the tank, they all swim away from the glass but return to surfing as soon as I leave. I have also turned the light off to help them settle but it had no effect on the glass surfing. I plan to try to feed another cube of frozen bloodworms this evening to hopefully get at least SOME food into all of them and then start the Med trio in the morning. I will give them until the end of the treatment to get more comfortable and cut down on the glass surfing or I will have to try to blackout the sides. I may also add a powerhead to increase the flow. If anyone has any other ideas, I am all ears.