Setting up another SW tank, Dog Face Puffer

[fjmcm1947]

MY first tank is a great success so now I am setting up a second all based around a Dog Face Puffer when I first saw this fish in a store I new I had to have him, the fish was sold first question is.

Who online do you feel best to buy fish from ? petsolution has some as of yesterday.

What other fish would be good tank mates.

My new 56 gal Tall tank will be Fish Only

 

[match55]

puffer should live by itself, u can try other puffer, fish that a bigger, or more aggressive fish, but not recommended, cuz puffer need a lot space.

don't even try to put invert if u r planning to
they might seems to do well, but if one day or two you forget to feed your dog face, the inverts will probably be gone.
thats my experience, u don't wanna know how many inverts I have lost cuz I wanna try to make my porcupine live with my invert. LOL
never order fish online, but here is one that Zero recommended to me.
https://www.bluezooaquatics.com/index.asp
I would try to get the puffer at your LFS, since they poop when they r stress in a bag, so if the shipping takes too long, it might hurt it a little.
IMO overnight its still too long, when I bought my porcupine, only take 5mins from LFS to my home, and that fat porcupine alread made a mess in the bag.

let me know if u have any questions on puffer, I might able to help.

 

[Flake]

I ordered from blue zoo, and I was pretty happy with my purchase. I'd order from them again.

My plate didn't look good and they were really nice about it. I don't mind if something comes up badly, but more how they'll fix the issue and they seem to be pretty good about sorting out any problems.

 

[fjmcm1947]

okay, thanks I have done some research on the dog face and know not to put inverts in with it, and have read about other mate she will do well with just thinking someone may have a dog face that has been working well I have read that some tangs do well, like the yellow and even a lady had wrote she had a Perk in with the dog. thanks again I will check zoo.

 

[melissasreef]

I have a small porc. puffer with a niger trigger, minitis grouper, a yellow tang, and a rabbit fish
all r happy and have lots of hiding places. I have found that more frequent h2o changes due to wasye and sloppy eatting.

 

[fjmcm1947]

Thanks, I will look those fish up and read about them

 

[melosu58]

I have a small porc. puffer with a niger trigger, minitis grouper, a yellow tang, and a rabbit fish
all r happy and have lots of hiding places. I have found that more frequent h2o changes due to wasye and sloppy eatting.

Melissa brings up an excellent point. You`ll need to keep on top of the PWC`s as they are very sloppy eaters and your excessive nutrients will be sky high.

 

[fjmcm1947]

Puffers are sloppy eaters in comparison to a oscar or a jack? what does PWc mean.

I do a water change every 2 wks and I have crushed coral in one tank and plain old white rock in the new one with some of my coral from the other I vacum 1/2 the substrate each time with a python, thats 4 tanks Three 50+ and one 75 good thing im retired.

 

[Aquarium1]

Pwc= partial water change

 

[Zer0]

PWC = Partial water change.

My suggestion to you and your tank.. get rid of the crushed coral substrate. It will lead to nitrate problems that you don't want to deal with down the road. Unless your doing some SERIOUS maintenance on it.. it will start to head south in the future.

 

[fjmcm1947]

partialwater change duh

ZERO--crushed coral will lead to nitrate problems, Why? and how?

 

[Zer0]

The reason being.. Because of the large shapes, and rigidity of crushed coral.. waste, detritus, and other things fall through the empty spaces, and build up and start to rot. This leads to nitrate problems. And just doing simple vacuuming.. won't get to the very bottom where all of the seriously bad stuff falls through to. Crushed coral was just a product made problem. At least in my opinion. If you are doing some serious maintenance as i said.. and like moving the CC around everyday to get to the places where normal vacuuming can't get to.. then clearly you will not have those problems listed above. But most people DON'T do that sort of maintenance.. nor do they want to. Sand just keeps all of the waste on top, and makes it easy for you to either vacuum or the top.. or for your clean up crew to just eat it.

 

[melosu58]

The reason being.. Because of the large shapes, and rigidity of crushed coral.. waste, detritus, and other things fall through the empty spaces, and build up and start to rot. This leads to nitrate problems. And just doing simple vacuuming.. won't get to the very bottom where all of the seriously bad stuff falls through to.

 

[dhemp34]

I was going to ask the same question but realized once posted you'll answered...Well i have crushed coral and hadn't had any nitrate issues....I'm realy condused on that statement. To add insult to injury lol...i also had a undergroundfilter....lol..still no issue...?

 

[Flake]

Food and waste can't get down into the sand, cc has enough space between the bits to allow food and waste to get down in those teeny holes between the bits of coral. This food and poop will sit and rot and collect. There's no real way you can get this food out, so it will just collect and rot until it becomes a problem for your water quality.

 

[fjmcm1947]

Zero, I had a feeling that was what you were going to say, This is really crazy that is the reason I went for coral instead of sand when I vacum I go straight down to the glass sucking up all debri having cichlid for years and as messy as they are made me do big cleaning as I thought this over it bothered me that with sand I would not be able to get down deep, I have deep rock in my cichlid tanks as well.

Does that make sence?

You might say I am some what of a clean freek I dont want a bunch of stuff growing all over everywhere, if my fish need algae or seaweed I will put it on a clip.

 

[Zer0]

Well see, as i said, people who do serious maintenance and get all of the waste out from between the crushed coral.. clearly will not have the same problems as someone who doesn't clean as vigorous as you do. Even people who just vacuum the top of the crushed coral will have problems since they can't get all the way down to the bottom where most of the detritus and waste accumulates. But since you can, i don't see how there will be any problems.

 

[fjmcm1947]

Going to pick up a couple uncook shrimp tomorrow and get this thing going Thanks for all the input everyone I hope this is my last tank I am running out of places to put them, But I could build a building for Fish, I do have a pond full of catfish and other creatures about 50 ft by 50 8ft deep havent tried catching any in years. I had been told that they wouldnt mutiply in a small pond, I sunk a bunch of PVC pipe in there years ago and after I sunk the PVC we had a bunch of little catfish.