I'm back...Setting up a dwarf puffer tank.

[imhill]

wow, i know this is an old thread, but just wow. I bought dp's at FG a few years ago right about that time, but i got two males and one female, instead of one male and two females, and the bigger male killed the little on while i wasnt home.

[ptran]

Whoa, How I missed this thread. Great color with the red background.

[mnemenoi]

I like the tank, very nice coloring!

[BIG FISH]

i have a fluval spec v and i was thinking of going the planted route, right now im cycling witha zebra danio. I was thinking threadfin rainbows and pygmy cories. Maybe red root floaters, crypts, ect. thanks man. love the puffers!

[Matt in Houston]

Thanks! This is a great 15g tank that can be picked up at Petsmart or Petco for around $85 and the lid can be modified to fit extra lighting. I also upgraded the filtration. Its the same tank that Mhx just used in his purple colored Ram tank. I added a fixture that put an extra two bulbs in the hood, LED's bulbs equal to about 40w each (300 lumen ea), using 4.8w energy. The 8w T5 that comes with the hood was swapped for an Aqua-glo. So over all it is less than 100 watts of light for the 15g tank, much more than I actually need...So I have some floating plants like duckweed and hornwort to provide a slightly dimmer setting.

Plants are very hardy and grow new leaves weekly. Took a few weeks to acclimate but have taken off after that. No Co2 and no ferts except leaf zone. After a water change sometimes they pearl.

[BIG FISH]

awesome! absolutly love it! Do you do anything specific for those plants? Whats the watts per gallon?

[Matt in Houston]

Update

Tank is doing great. I have 4 dwarf puffers and they are doing fine together for several months now. Plenty of hiding spaces and things to keep them busy. Looks like I have 3 females to 1 male, which is about perfect. One of my females is much larger than the others...and of course the male, who is the smallest yet the feistiest in the tank. They are coloring up nicely, with some yellow highlights on their fins and deep greens and browns on their bodies. The male has iridescent bluish lines behind his eyes. They are very curious and inquisitive. They know when I go to the freezer and pull out their food...this send them in a frenzy with all four of them starring me down through the glass like 4 dogs looking through a window.

They move around constantly and are hard to capture with an iPhone...






So far I am very happy with this easy to maintain bare bottom tank. The plants keep the water fresh and everyone is happy. Water changes are once every two weeks mainly to vac debris, as nitrate is still virtually undetectable due to plants. Between water changes, I end up topping off with a gallon or so of water every two weeks. Water change amount is about 40% at a time.

I am dosing leaf zone twice a week, and my lights are only on for 7 hours on a timer, from 1pm to 8pm. I had some green spot algae forming on the leaves at 8 hours but cutting it back last week to 7 hours has already made a noticeable improvement.

[mnemenoi]

Very nice! Dwarf puffers are endless fun and just so inquisitive...

[Matt in Houston]

So headed up to Fish Gallery after running a few errands yesterday. To my dismay, they only had one dwarf puffer left. Oh well, picked him up and also grabbed a few carbon black shrimp and a huge marimo ball.

He has been exploring the tank and is very curious, picking at the driftwood and the plants. He also met a nerite snail and gave him a little tap, but then left to do other things. He made his bed in a little spot under the largest marimo ball. I checked on him last night and he was fast asleep.

Hopefully FG will get a few more puffers in soon as I would like to have 3 or 4 in this tank if possible.

Anyway, enjoy the pics!

puff4.jpgshrimp2.jpgpuff3.jpgpuff2.jpgpuff1.jpg

[troy tucker]

Matt the tank is looking great.

[morpheus]

very nice color to that plant tank. i never did CO2. i tried the flourish excel for a CO2 boost, but never seemed to make things pop more. maybe i will give it a try sometime.

Fish Gallery gets them in regularly, so if you really cannot tell, you can always wait until the next shipment for more to choose from in the group. The employees are also good and can try to assist.

the ratio is preference really. most pages i read before i purchased recommended 3:1 for F:M to avoid males fighting. it definitely was difficult in store with them being young.

I personally went with the higher female ratio just incase one i thought was female turned out to be male, or vice versa. just gave me more margin for error.

i thought i got 3F to 1M, but ended up 2/2. oh well

[Matt in Houston]

Yeah I'm a big research nut, I've probably read almost every thread about dwarf puffers...I tried to look closely at them but I honestly couldn't tell. I will take my time when I buy them and really look hard. They have about 6 or 7 left at Fish Gallery last time I was there.

In your opinion, for my setup should I stick to my original plan of 1 male and 2 female, or should I go 1 male and 3 female?

And yes the plants use nitrate as a fert which is another reason why I really like having planted tanks. A few years ago I had a nice starrphire 90g with pressurized c02. I enjoyed watching my plants pearl and they had amazing growth but this time I am going to keep it simple.

Here is a pic of that tank...eventually it grew out of control and I was trimming it constantly. I even had flowers growing out the top of the tank.

oldtank1.jpg

[morpheus]

the plants will absorb the nitrates. they use it as fertilizer, so if its densely planted you rarely see nitrates above zero.

i just took my best guess when selecting at the store. look for the iridescent cracks around the eyes. those are generally the first markings that arrive for males. there are a many good sites for other characteristics of each sex on Google

[Matt in Houston]

That is great advice!

I will definitely wait at least another week and keep an eye on water parameters. I am planning to add at least 3 DP's to the tank. I wish I could sex them 1 male and 2 female, but they are still juvenile and I couldn't really tell last time I saw them.

Right now looks like I have zero ammonia, zero nitrites, and 5 nitrate...I'll check again tomorrow.

[mnemenoi]

It sounds close enough, just add them all at one time to avoid any territoriality issues later on. Then monitor your water parameters closely. Puffers are messy eaters and can leave excess food after a feeding, so monitoring your initial ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate is important. They are especially sensitive to any Ammonia or Nitrite, at any level and Nitrates should stay under 40ppm at the worst. Something to try is adding a bit of a dead shrimp or excess food and see what your numbers are the day after. If you see no Ammonia/Nitrites you should have the tank cycled.