breakaway

The bulbs I buy from the wholesaler are the same size / wattage as the ones in the LFS that are 'recommended' for the unit. Only the LFS ones are Gimmicky 'plant growth' tubes. Consdering I'm getting great results with my 865 bulbs, I was simply saying that I don't believe there's any point in paying ~$50 for those gimmicky plant growth tubes.

Also don't bother dropping upwards of $50 on Glo branded T5 bulbs. Get 865 daylight bulbs to suit your ballast from a bulb wholesaler. I got mine for $12 per bulb. The LFS charges over $50 for similar T5HO bulbs IIRC.

I wouldn't buy that unit if I was you - I think that unit is for people who have space constraints or want high customizability - it's basically just the ballast and the end connectors and a mains cable, and all the remaining mounting is up to you. I'd buy something like this http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 264585.htm They come in 2 ft, 3ft and 4ft I think. I picked up my 3ft 2nd hand Glo T5 for $50 (Without bulbs and mounting gear) which I thought was a ridiculously awesome price. It has a built in reflector. Only qualm is that it doesn't have a power switch, but I run the whole thing off an automatic timer anyway so that's a nonissue. Otherwise you'd be unplugging and plugging it in to turn it off / on.

The T5 Glo units are fantastic. I have a twin 38w setup over my tank with DIY CO2, and the plants are pearling.

How long do the soda stream bottles last? Are you able to post an eact parts list of what you have? Very interested in setting up one myself.

Yeah... these fish are awesome. Look at what a fantastic job they did on the heater and the filter intake! (This is actaully a few days after the completely cleaned off the stuff, so its re-grown a bit)

My puffer tank hit 30.6 degrees yesterday. I have a panelbeaters down the road, and I can smell paint between the hours of 9am-5pm most days. So I can't open the window to the room, so I have real green house effect in there. I've got two desk fans blowing at full clip on the tank today though, and I've raised the lighting system higher up.

Ideally what you'd want is a car battery (or similar) and a solar panel strong enough to charge it, so during daytime it can run the pump and charge the battery, and the battery will surely have enough juice to run the pump for the night.

Yeah.. these guys won't eat dried food at all. In fact I'm having trouble getting mine to accept mysis shrimp. They will gladly eat bloodworm (2 each!) and have a go at 'pest' snails which I got from the LFS. I put 4 in yesterday, and today all that was left were the empty shells!

Nevermind - problem solved :bounce:

This stuff is growing all over the Power head / UV Filter (lol, ironic isn't it?) Photos: (water is kinda murky since I just did a water change in the last pic) How do I get rid of it? pH at 6.3 Ammonia at 0 ppm Nitrate at 1 ppm Tank uses DIY CO2 system. Light only 11w. Filtration is by 400lph trickle filer above tank (AR380 standard), and Blue Planet UView UV Filter. Tank has been up for a month and a half. It's not growing on the plants just yet but I don't want to hang around and find out if it will. For the time being I've stopped the CO2 - is this the right thing to do?

Nope - they're pretty aggressive even though they only grow to about an inch in size. Suitable tankmates include oto cats, and certain types of freshwater shrimp as a 'clean up crew' since they're so messy. You could try getting them settled into a community tank, but I wouldnt' recommend it - read the testimonials here - http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_puffer3.php - almost everytime someone has tried to put them into a community tank, it has ended in disaster. Some people have had success though - However there's also stuff like this on there

I'm sure they puff up, but I've never seen them do so. But according to my internet research, a puffed up puffer fish is a bad thing - they often cannot unpuff and float upside down and starve to death. So I'm taking due care to make sure they don't puff up.

Some photos (You have no idea how difficult it is to get a good shot of these guys!)

I will be getting some snails from the LFS tomorrow to provide some variation in their diet - however my extensive research tells me that dwarf puffers do not have issues with overgrown teeth. Apparently most of the time the puffer will suck the snail out of its shell rather than eat it whole - http://www.dwarfpuffers.com/ (Click feeding and read the "Snails" paragraph) @Brennos - Not particularly hard, but definitely takes more work than the average tetra or whatever. The two most important things to consider is feeding them (they are picky, and messy eaters) and tank mates - they sometimes don't play nice with other fish. Its very hit and miss with puffers - you might get one puffer that won't mind living in a community tank, and another that is very aggressive to other puffers even. Heaps of personality When I feed them I'm careful to not let excess food accumulate. They have no ribs etc, so they can gorge themselves to death (apparently). They are also very sensitive to water parameters (this is part of why I remove excess food). So putting them into a well established aquarium is an absolute must. Photo: http://iforce.co.nz/i/gvgz5cml.jpg

How many of you keep freshwater dwarf puffers? I've just set up a species tank with 3 x dwarf puffers (2F, 1M) Just curious to see if there are any locals that keep em! I fed my puffers blood worm earlier this evening at 7pm and one of them still has the worm 'sheath' stuck in his mouth - I'm not particularly concerned about this but the mrs can't stop bitching :roll:

I'm having the same problem. My dwarf puffer tank is at 29 deg and won't come down. Bigger tank with 80w of lighting over it is 28.something.

The tank which I trasnferred the media to isn't empty, it has 3 of the adult platys in it, and a 5 columbian tetras too - should be enough waste ya reckon? And the smaller tank is 38L big. I understand most of the bacteria live in the filter media and also in the substrate, so loss of the media shouldn't that big a deal. Am I correct in assuming this?

In the small tank are 10 x neon tetra, 3 x 3 week old platy fry, 3 x adult Platy (M/F/F). I would be putting in 2-3 puffers (It's a well planted tank with lots of space for the puffer fish if they decide to lay claim to territory). I've read that they are fussy and incrediby messy eaters, so might be some extra bio load on the bacteria because of that.

Hi, I've had a small tank set up for a while now, and appears to be fully cycled (or so my test kits tell me). I've also set up a 200ltr tank (3 days ago) with a fluval canister filter. I've moved half the ceramic noodles from the small tank (which wasn't very much mind you - it was about enough to fill half of one of the baskets in the filter (there are three total - 2 x noodles, 1 x carbon, so the 25% of the ceramic noodles in there have good bacteria on them). I plan to move all the community fish out of the small tank and then get some dwarf freshwater puffers (they don't play nice with other fish) for the smaller tank - and I'm just wondering how lowering the good bacteria by 50% (since I took out half the 'live' ceramic noodles) will affect the water chemistry - more ammonia etc? Since puffers are very sensitve to water parameters and as per wikipieda do not take well to even the slightest amount of ammonia etc. I'm very keen/exicited/can't wait! to buy them, but at the same time I also don't want to hurt them in any way. Also, can someone also post now that I have some live bacteria in the filter for the new tank, how long before they become established and ammonia levels aren't an issue anymore? TIA!

Another alternative would be to install a UV Filter.

I'm pretty sure CO² saturation and O² saturation in water are independent, unless you're putting absolutely ridiculous amounts of CO² into water (like I'm talking so much CO² that it's bubbling off the surface) Think about it this way - you have a cup of hot water and are making a coffee. First you mix in the coffee, then you add the sugar. Does mixing in the sugar displace the coffee from the water? No. It sweetens the coffee. I.e. both the coffee and the sugar remain mixed in the hot water. CO² and O² work in the same way. This has been discussed at length in the previous CO² thread. One of the best (cheapest) ways to do it is to run the CO² airline into the intake of your filter. The CO² bubbles will make their way up into the implellor chamber where they will get bashed around and therefore mixed into the water, ready for plants to use.

Where's the link to that? Been searching for a while now, can't find it :lol: Might enter it 8)

Does the driftwood at some point stop reducing the pH or is it something I have to deal with for the duration that the driftwood is in the tank?

Okay, I just assumed I need to keep it at that level. I've got a bigger aquarium incoming later this week hopefully (215 L) and once this tank is all cycled, I was planning to plant it heavily, move the fish to the bigger aquarium and then get convert it into a species-only dwarf puffer tank. And puffers are very sensitive to water parameters, and most sites recommend 7 and not 6. Don't want the pH bouncing up and down and killing my puffers - so I'm trying to find the imbalance and remove it.