My brackish tank plan

The forum for puffers that either live or start in brackish biotopes: GSPs, F8s, Ceylons & more.
Post Reply
Maduro
Puffer Fry
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2021 10:52 pm
Location (country): USA New York

My brackish tank plan

Post by Maduro »

Hi,

I'm a longtime African and Central American fish keeper with a couple of large wet/dry systems that have been running for many years and my fish thrive...but I've never done a brackish puffer tank. This weekend I purchased a medium sized 3.5" GSP. In the shop he was in a floating "isolation basket" in a 100% freshwater tank. He was obviously stressed with muted colors. I filled a spare 29 gallon I had with water from a well established tank and added a sponge filter to get him started. He started swimming around right away and in the evening began glass surfing....I put in some lava rock from one of my tanks and that seemed to interest him enough that he started exploring and I haven't seen him surfing this morning. Today his colors look much better and his belly is lightening up. I tried feeding him a thawed shrimp tail with some meat in it but he pretty much ignored it. He's a bit chubby so he may just not be comfortable enough to eat right now...picking up frozen krill, and hikari clams on halfshell today to try to get him eating. I will be converting him to brackish slowley over the next few weeks.

I ordered his forever tank last night, a 90 gallon acrylic tank. I plan on aqua scaping with lots of fake plants, rock and sand. I have not considered tankmates yet and he may be here solo.

I've read a lot about 24hr salted water buckets in preparation for water changes. I'm not a bucket guy. I have drain and fill hoses plumbed into my home. That said, I do understand that you need the salt to dissolve vs just putting it in the tank and shocking the system. My Plan is to set the 90 gallon up and place the 29 gallon in the cabinet below the main tank, fill the 29 gallon up and add salt, dechlorinate, circulate, when it's time for a water change drain main tank and utilize circulation pump to refill main tank with clean water from below. Seems ridiculously obvious but I haven't read it anywhere...am I missing something or does this sound fine?

Thanks in advance, looking forward to learning more about these amazing fish.
User avatar
Pufferpunk
Queen Admin
Posts: 32764
Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles
Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
Location: Chicago
Contact:

Re: My brackish tank plan

Post by Pufferpunk »

Perfect! Lots of great info in our Library.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
Post Reply