New tank help - Aquaculture and puffers

[keriboi]

Hi All

Its my daughters first birthday coming up and the wife is keen on a fish tank. Its been 6 years since I last had a tank and it seems a lot has changed.

Looking at getting a standard glass tank 610 x 380 x 460 or 610 x 460 x 460

Wife wants to get Pufferfish that she saw in Hollywood Albany. Are these easy to look after and how many can you put in a 100L tank? What other fish are they suitable with?

Im keen on growing plants so keen on getting a decent light setup. What are all these LED Light setups like?

What are some recommendations for filters?

For heater I like the look of the Fluval E 100Watt

Other than that any suggestions?

[Silverdollarboy2]

If the puffers are dwarf puffers you could have 4-5 in a 100 litre tank.They are easy to keep but need frozen or live food.They can't be kept with anything but otto catfish.

The fluval 100 watt heater would be good for your tank.

I like the aqua one moray 700 but it's really up to you.

 

[Adrienne]

Dwarf Puffers are cannibals. If two of your group pair off they will pick off the others during the dark hours.

They love ramshorn snails, so start breeding in plenty of time.

Some of the other puffers prefer brackish.

[alexyay]

Edited to say, I know this looks like a wall of text but I want to say that despite their difficulties, puffers are super super cool fish. They're definitely one of my favourites (if not my favourites)! They are 100% totally completely worth keeping!

Puffers! It's important to know a few general rules about puffers

- Live foods are a must. Even dwarfs tend to only take frozen and live foods. Any species other than dwarfs require snails and other hard-shelled foods (eg crustaceans) to keep their beaks down, or they'll grow too long. Dwarfs definitely appreciate snails, though, and they're super easy to grow. All puffers are predators in one way or another, and foods like snails help to keep them from getting bored

- Boredom can be an issue. Puffers are very intelligent little fish, so a well planted/decorated tank is a must. I like to switch up my puffer's tank to help keep her interested in her surroundings.

- All puffers need mature tanks. This is a must! They're very sensitive to deteriorating water conditions, so a tank needs to be cycled.

- While they tend to prefer low water movement, a large filter is necessary. They're messy fish, especially as food left over food can get pretty gross.

- It's recommended 99% of the time to keep puffers as a species only tank. So only dwarfs with dwarfs, F8s with F8s etc. Some species you can keep as groups. It's very important to know that if you are keeping a group, you NEED a spare tank. I don't know about other species, but when sick, dwarf puffers will pick on the sick one until it dies, so isolating sick ones is necessary. You may also need to remove aggressors if they end up going on a killing rampage.

- Keeping groups is best as 3+ (spreads aggression). IMO 5+ would be your best option, as as Adrienne said, they can pair up (would rather that spread between 3 other fish, rather than attacking a single tankmate). I've heard of larger groups being more successful, even having breeding occur in a group of 10+ (on this forum, in fact).

- It's very common for puffers to come with internal parasites - I'd recommend having something like Praziquantel on hand, and to make very sure to get the healthiest looking fish possible. Big tummy, and interactive (comes to the front of the tank when you put your finger up to it). If the store will do it, it's a good idea to ask them to feed the fish to make sure it's feeding before taking it home.

IMO for a tank that size you have two options (maybe 3 if you're willing to get a larger tank later on).

- A small group of about 5-7 dwarf puffers. For a group, footprint is essential, as is a LOT of decoration to help break line of sight and give everyone territories and places to hide. It's suggested to have more females than males, but they're typically impossible to sex in store, so it's a "wait and see" situation. You could keep a single 3/4" puffer in there if you want, though The minimum tank size for these guys is about 31L for a single fish IMO. The general rule is 5 gallons per extra fish (that puts yours at about 5 puffers all together). I know it seems like a big tank for so few small fish, but they're SO full of personality.

- A single Figure 8 puffer. Typically I'd recommend either having experience with salt water and/or puffers before this, just because keeping brackish is a bit of extra work (but really it's like keeping any brackish fish). F8s get to 8cm and need ~70L minimum, so 100L is the perfect size! They're low-end brackish, so you want a salinity of about 1.005 to 1.008. For brackish you want to use saltwater mixes available at your LFS to buffer your water before doing WCs (these provide all the essential bits and bobs, as just salt alone won't do the job) - you'll want to do more research on how to change specific gravity (salt content) if you're going for F8s. But it's important to note that the pet store quite likely has them in fresh water, so you'll want to raise the SG over the next few weeks/months. Brackish at the start sounds scary, but F8s are incredibly cute and rewarding - they're like a dog, but in a tank. Very full of personality! Some people like to put a ping-pong ball at the top of the tank and the fish plays with it and chases it around. Most puffer species can be taught all kinds of tricks!

A final option would be Green Spotted Puffers. I would so love to have one of these guys one day! IMO a 200L tank is the minimum, but you could maybe keep one in a 100L for 6 months to a year as a grow-out. These guys get to 15cm and seem to prefer full marine/high-end brackish conditions as they get older (so transition from fresh, low end brackish, high end brackish, marine). So the size and SG transition are their two difficulties. VERY cute fish, though. I love their little faces. Eep!

There aren't many good LEDs available here IMO. The brands I've looked at are Current's Satellite+, Finnex, Ecoxotic and BuildMyLED. Unfortunately they have to be bought from the states, but the Finnex for example + shipping tends to work out not much more expensive (if not the same) as a T8/T5 unit (and will save you power). I personally love my Finnex Planted+ unit.

Plants in brackish become a bit more difficult, but Java fern and microsword are two brackish compatible plants.

Filters - I prefer to have a canister filter on anything above a 90L tank. Quite a few different brands available out there, and if you go for either of the above your bioload shouldn't be too huge, so you won't need to overfiltrate much. You get what you pay for with filters - Eheim and Fluval are your best quality, Aqua One coming after that, then Sunsun. The more expensive brands tend to last longest.

I honestly don't know where Fluval rates when it comes to heaters (I accidentally just broke my Fluval heater today, lol) - to my knowledge the best recommended brand is Eheim. IMO only AquaOne is really any good after that, maybe Jebo. I wouldn't touch BluePlanet with a ten-foot pole.

RE the dwarf puffers - some people have had success with them and Otocinclus sp. Otos are little catfish, which are somewhat specialist too. Like puffers, they've super sensitive to water conditions. Many people find they lose them during the acclimation process, so drip acclimation is definitely preferable. I unfortunately lost all of mine due to a 40ppm nitrate spike. They need groups of 5+ and are very cool little fish - however, some people have found that when kept with puffers they go missing. Typically I wouldn't recommend them, but that's because most people aren't keeping them in a tank big enough or in shoals. But, you could probably get away with 5-7 of them too in a 100L.

[keriboi]

Thanks for all the info guys.

Although the puffers look awesome we would prefer a good mix of fish so they wont be suitable

Thanks