Newbie - Ease My Worry?

[tristyn]

Hey all,

I've been lurking this forum for months now and finally made an account. I'm just starting out with puffers and am hoping my set up that's in the works will be good enough for the little guys! Despite reading all I thought I needed to know on the forum, I still somehow ended up taking the advise of Petsmart employees when it came to certain aspects of my tank. So with that said, does this sound like a good set up for 3 dwarf puffers?

20 gallon tank:
*Running a Fluval heater at 80 degrees (a little higher currently while cycling)
*AquaClear 30 - going to replace the carbon with an extra sponge so I have 2 sponges and a bio bag in the filter instead of the set up provided, but currently working with 1 sponge, carbon (gone soon), and the bio bag
*Bubble Wand with reduced stream
*Tons of plants and a few caves. Gonna do a mix of taller fake plants with soft leaves, and some low light live plants. Still working on gathering all of these

What I'm most worried about is the AquaClear 30 being enough for my 20 gallon. I was told by Petsmart employees that it would, and the gallons per hour seemed good but now I'm not certain I made the right choice and am regretting not getting the 50. It's been about 5 days since I started cycling and I don't want to have to restart with a new filter if Petsmart would even let me do the exchange, so do you think the 30 will do alright? Any other advice would be appreciated as well. Thank you!

[bertie 83]

That filter should be ok, you will be ok with 3 dwarf puffers as long as you only have a maximum of 1 male. Welcome to the forum. Good on you for researching and cycling properly prior to purchasing the little guys. Oh how are you cycling the tank? Check out our fish less cycling article in the library

[tristyn]

As long as the filter is okay to start, I'll worry less. I'm open to updating to a bigger size if it's a problem in the future but doubt the filter is returnable now and I'm low on money now that I splurged on the tank.

I'm doing a fish less cycle with store bought ammonia from Ace hardware and a bottle of Safestart. I wanted to do fish less since I know puffers aren't good cycle fish and I don't plan on getting other species. If the Safestart doesn't work I may have access to reliable seeding material from a tank at work. Hoping it'll all be ready when my order of puffers comes in at the LFS. I requested they try to order me two females and a male but I guess we'll see I'm not super confident in the store owners honestly.

[Pufferpunk]

Proud to have ya here!

[G S P Freak]

Yeah sounds like you're off to a good start. Should be a nice setup for a few DPs =P

[bertie 83]

Forward planning is well respected on this forum, good job

[tristyn]

You're all making me feel so good about my set up, thank you! Dwarf puffers have been one of my "dream fish" for over a year now but I've been struggling to find them. I guess that's why I'm so worried and trying to be extra prepared.

Just as a mini update: I've got all sorts of nice looking fake plants set up and am going to pick up some java fern and anubias to attach to my driftwood and a few decorations. The tank's been cycling for almost a week. My puffers shouldn't be in for another 2-3 weeks I'm assuming, as the LFS owner wasn't going to put in the order for at least a few more weeks.