Fahaka Puffer Hazy Eyes, Trouble Breathing. HELP

Hey guys, so up until a couple days ago my Fahaka puffer was very happy.  I had some extra Fritz Zyme Nitrifying Bacteria lying around, and since it is a newer tank I decided it couldn't hurt to add some to his tank to help the filter along...well, the next day I came home and found that one of his eyes was totally hazed over, and several of the Danios I had in with him had died (for no apparent reason).

Not sure why the bacteria would do this, but I flushed the tank anyway to ensure the water was perfect for him...well today when I came home, it's even worse.  Both eyes are hazy and he appears to be having trouble breathing, fins are down and he just generally looks worn out. Plus, for the first time since I've owned him, I saw him swim to the top of the tank and stick his nose to the surface of the water. He usually never goes anywhere near the top.

Please help!

I followed the instructions on the bacteria bottle as closely as I could, and it says the doseage can safely be increased up to 10x, so I doubt I overdosed.  Any ideas?

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You said 'newer' tank, how long has it been set up? Were you adding the stuff because it was not cycled?

Do you have a water test kit? What are the water parameters?

Sounds like ammonia burn. Puffers are very prone to that. Waiting a few extra weeks for a tank to cycle 100% is not a recommendation its the law. OK not really but it should be.

My levels have all been good, I watch ammonia very closely.  Levels will be okay one day, then the ammonia jumps up to .5-1ppm and I do a water change immediately...

The thing that bothers me is he was very healthy until I added bacteria.  Is ammonia burn the only possible cause?  How fast does that heal?  Can bacteria cause hazy eyes and dead fish?  I thought I was keeping the tank pretty damn clean.  I change his water often because I was warned when I bought him they are messy fish.

Levels are usually around-
Ph 6 (all my tanks seem to stick close to 6)
Ammonia at most 1ppm before I flush the tank, lower if I catch it in time.
Nitrite, nitrate usually stay around 0ppm.

Tank has been up around a month. Not sure how accurate water parameters are when I change water so often.

Are you using a liquid test kit or strips?

API Master Test Kit.

If the bacteria had been opened previously? Usally only good a day or so after being opened. Could also have been out of date. Those insta filter in a bottle are just just time bombs. If the bacteria was dead or not viable. You dumped a ton of dead/dying matter into you tank. Time and good practices are always the best way to set up a tank.

Both problems are caused only two problems in my years of aquarium keeping. Ammonia burn or bacterial infection due to poor water quality.

It had never been opened, and wasn't expired yet, but who knows if it was a bad batch or not.

I was advised by my fish store to change water daily until he heals, but that there isn't much else I can do.  Any idea on how long this takes, and if he's likely to pull through?  I caught it the same day, fortunately.  Is it possible to get ammonia burn when the level is so low? No chance it's bacterial?

Any ammonia reading is bad.

Hi Lymitliss,
I am not sure about the Puffer and how hardy it is but I would recommend a tried and true hardy fish to cycle any aquarium. Small barbs, Danios fish like that. Do you have any other well established FW tanks? If so I would seed bacteria into your new system using old filter media, transfered water, decore, something or even all three. There are some good starter bacteria kits on the market. I've never used them but come highly recommended.  Perhaps one of our members (Madness or Aquarium Op-op) will jump in and recommend an over the counter bacteria product.

I would be amazed if Mr. Puffer pulls through. Ammonia and nitrates are highly toxic. I am sorry.








I am not trying to be rude but I have to post this. I have no idea how long you've been in the hobby. This is one of my 1st reads as an aquarium hobbyist. It has a lot of good info on the nitrogen cycle with fish, and cycling tanks without fish.

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I agree it doesn't look good, but as far as ammonia, I've always kept it as low as possible, and nitrites are always 0.  I guess I fail to see how this was caused by either...

lymitliss wrote:My levels have all been good, I watch ammonia very closely.  Levels will be okay one day, then the ammonia jumps up to .5-1ppm and I do a water change immediately...

The thing that bothers me is he was very healthy until I added bacteria.  Is ammonia burn the only possible cause?  How fast does that heal?  Can bacteria cause hazy eyes and dead fish?  I thought I was keeping the tank pretty damn clean.  I change his water often because I was warned when I bought him they are messy fish.

Levels are usually around-
Ph 6 (all my tanks seem to stick close to 6)
Ammonia at most 1ppm before I flush the tank, lower if I catch it in time.
Nitrite, nitrate usually stay around 0ppm.

Tank has been up around a month.  Not sure how accurate water parameters are when I change water so often.

The bold emphasis is mine.  I'm not sure there is anything else you can do in the short term besides keep the water clean and ride it out.  You're using Prime or some other water conditioner on changes?     There are some medications that can generally help produce slime coats and such, but I'm not experienced enough to advise on them.  Regardless of what happens though, for the future, I'd tell you that your tank does not appear to be fully cycled in terms of denitrifying bacteria.  You should have 0 ppm ammonia and nitrate nearly 100% of the time, and conversely, you should almost always have some measurable nitrate (somewhere in the orange spectrum on your API kit), although a heavily planted tank with fast growing plants can and will suck out the nitrates, so there are exceptions.  You should not have to do water changes to get the ammonia or nitrites down, unless some other event damages your bacteria colony (cleaning, chlorinated water, etc) and you experience a small cycle while your bacteria regrows itself in those cases. (a colony is said to double in size every 12 hours under favorable conditions, and once healthy, should adjust its size to the bioload your fish/tank provide it in terms of ammonia).   I used fritz zyme to cycle my tank, and despite what Fritz told me on the bottle, I waited until my tank processed a 2 ppm dose of ammonia (from Ace Hardware) through nitrite and into nitrates in a 24 hour period before I put fish in it.  Took 34 days.  Long, interminable, spend my hours reworking stock lists and looking at the Wet Spot's stock list, kind of days.  Ugh.  

37 juvenile Mbuna in the 75G at once though, no plants.  2 months in, test every third day or so, never even a tinge of green in the ammonia or a hint of purple in the nitrites.  It's not for everyone, and that's cool, but a robust, healthy bio filter (no matter how you get it, really) is ridiculously important to keeping healthy fish, especially scaleless ones like puffers, whose skin is ultra sensitive to toxins like ammonia and nitrites.  I'm pulling for your Fahaka, and hope he can recover.  Good luck to you and him!!

I'd want to be keeping the pH above 7. This ensures the bottom isn't dropping out as ammonia rises etc. Plus doing that many water changes it won't have the pH yoyoing. 6.0 is pretty low for fish generally.

What is likely causing your filter to be slow on the cycling is your frequent water changes. Nitrifying bacteria must reach a certain population density in the water before enough will contact and colonize your filter media. And I agree with the previous comments that there should never be any ammonia or nitrites in a cycled tank. The ONLY time this will happen is if there is a sudden influx of decaying material which is a larger quantity than your current bacterial population can convert.
As for treating your puff, I've had decent results staving off secondary bacterial infections and providing supportive care via increasing salt level to 1.003 and adding melafix. Tea tree is a soothing antibacterial, though being a puffer I'd use 1/2 the normal dose to start. I'd also put him in a smaller quarantine tank while you get his current one properly cycled.

Whenever I start a new tank I simply swap the filter media from an existing tank into the new filter (I use ceramic tubes). I replace the filter media in the cycled tank with new biomedia since there will be a healthy level of circulating bacteria in that tank to repopulate the media. Then your new tank is fully cycled immediately.

when ever I had a fish get the cloudy eye the tank ph was too low. Like cory said keep it in the 7's

Any improvement?