A Puffer Adventure

[Redwings]

It's almost as beautiful as you!

Looks nice and almost done )

[Obsidian]

Okay it showed as almost cycled yesterday and fully cycled today. However I am not believing the tests as it is cloudy and clearly in a bacterial bloom after adding shrimp last night and pulling it today.

Yesterday I did an 80% water change due to the numbers being so high earlier in the week (yesterday was the quickest I could get to the change). On Wednesday I believe it was the readings were ammo 0 nitrite 2 and nitrate 80. I pulled the shrimp from the tank and did the w/c yesterday. After the change the numbers were ammo 0 nitrite .25 and nitrate about 8.

I added the shrimp back in overnight and tested today: Ammo 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 10. But it is cloudy today as well so I don't really believe that there is no ammo or nitrite. One of them must be there.

So for now I am going to thaw out some shrimp (I have been just putting them in there frozen and it is possible that the cloudiness is just coming from the shrimp itself as it defrosts in there) and put in just pieces of it overnight to keep it fed and keep the nitrates down. If it continues to show these numbers then I will know it is really cycled. I would expect some creep in the nitrate which is fine. I will do a large w/c prior to putting the fish in.

I am going to hold it cycled like this for at least 2 weeks before I order the puffers. That should tell me that the tank is stable before they arrive.

[Obsidian]

Okay I asked my LFS to order the puffers. I am doubtful this will happen anytime soon because of how long people have been waiting for the lazy owner to actually put an order in. She keeps saying "next week" and then never doing it. Then she wonders why her customers don't come back. Doh.

So I have a Q: Is tropical fish distributors on AquaBid a trustworthy place? They have 6 dwarf golden puffers that I could get if I wanted. Also I cannot find a "dwarf golden puffer" I have found golden puffers and dwarf puffers but never that description. I do not want 6 golden puffers. Does anyone have any idea if they are actually dwarfs? No scientific name is given. They are butt cheap so it would really only be paying for shipping.

[jones57742]

Originally Posted by Obsidian So I have a Q: Is tropical fish distributors on AquaBid a trustworthy place?

Obs:

I have ordered from them once several years ago and had good luck.

They are a wholesaler who occasionally post on AB.

I would verify shipping costs before ordering.

TR

[hXcChic22]

Perhaps they are just Dwarf Puffers with a fancier-sounding name? Everything I've looked at says they are known by a million different names but are all generally the same thing.
We bought a pair of them from a Care-A-Lot and they are mean little things. One disappeared over a vacation and we took the other one to the LFS because he didn't seem to be doing well.

[bmlbytes]

Do they have a picture? Why not ask the seller what they are.

[Obsidian]

Yeah I thought I had an account open with AB but it turns out I did not. I have gone through their process now so I should be able to ask that. One of my tasks for the day. I hope that they are a good distributor.