The Puffer Forum

I'm glad to hear you're going to upgrade - your puffer will need the larger space. As for cleaning under the UGF, what I mean is taking the gravel vac and placing the underwater cup part flat against the UGF through the gravel...if nothing much comes out, it's not that dirty yet, but my past experie...

Mollys are BW and do a good job with hair algae, but I just find algae fairly common in my BW tank no matter what the water parameters are. Another option for the plants (I assume fake) is to pull them out and wash them periodically which is what many of us do. Do you gravel vac and suck out the gun...

I have a black dalmation molly with my figure 8 in a 29 gallon tank. I also have a knight goby. The knight will chase the puffer at feeding time, the molly will chase the knight, and the figure 8 seems to scare the molly...it's a weird triangle of aggression with no damage and it only occurs at feed...

Their little mouths, and teeth, are so relatively small...it reminded me of trimming my son's nails when he was a tot...oh how you hope your hands don't slip!

Eric

Hey everyone - I've had Hoover the Figure 8 for over a year now, and I finally had to trim his teeth tonight. I pulled out Jeni's article from TFH, and apart from needing a 4th drop of clove oil to really put Hoover under (he's a full 3" SL long and THICK around the waist) it wasn't too bad. I ...

While nitrate that low is OK, you don't want ANY nitrite reading. I think you need to up your water changes (weekly) doing 25-50% in the future each week. I'd suggest doing another water change right away and perhaps another a few days later...you need to get that tank nice and clean and keep it tha...

I've not kept groups of them, but I have read keeping 4 or so in a 20 long would be appropriate (caveat here - I read it on the net and can't recall the source). Supposedly, they bluff/display at each other but really don't hurt each other. I have one in with my Figure 8 and molly. The tank is a 29 ...

What a nice article...thanks for sharing.

Eric

Aragonite in your filter will buffer...but to what extent depends upon filter size and the natural KH of your water. My experience with silica sand is that it will not cause cuts, scrapes, or abrasions that tear up kuhli, dojo loach, or cory whiskers (multiple years of keeping them on silica play sa...

If it was just one figure 8, I'd say you'd be fine with good , frequent, large water changes. Keep on top of the nitrate levels (and make sure no nitrite or ammonia appear) with lots of big water changes. You'll be able to see how frequently you should do this, but at the very least a 50% water chan...

The figure 8/knight combo is working for me this time (the first time with a big knight didn't work out - the knight was a bully). Look for a smaller knight and I think you'll be better off. I also have a dalmation molly in there, too...all in a 29 gallon like you have.

Eric

I decided to net the little bugger and get a really close up view of what's on his fins...and it looked almost like a white, small worm on each fin. So, I grabbed a flash light, some fine tweezers, and pulled them off. He's now swimming fine, but hiding whenever he sees me. Hopefully that will take ...

Define clean up crew for us? I have a knight goby and a molly in with mine...the molly sure picks on algae (not diatom algae though) and the knight clean up bits of meaty foods.

Other than that, I'm the clean up crew!

Eric

Neale - thanks for the information. I'll just keep an eye on things at this point. The gravel is aragonite, and I vacuum it regularly (i.e. - weekly with water changes). However, we are in a drought in my part of the US, and I wonder if we could be getting something odd in our water because any farm...

It's at 1.006 (just checked).

Eric