The Story of Hank the Mbu Puffer.

[CoryWM]

I've had hank for about 5 years now. It's been a long journey. I haven't posted much here due to flaming of not a big enough tank etc. I feel now with 5 years under my belt I can share my experience with Hank so others can get an insight to owning a Mbu.

Early stages. 2009 or so:
37 gallon tall tank for quarantine. Needed to de-worm him and I socialized him with guppies. Here is a pic of him when I got him in the QT tank.



After that it was into the custom 305 gallon tank. 72x52x18 tall. 24 gallon water change drip system per day, nitrates never detectable.



He lived this way for many months. Tried all sorts of tank mates and decor/lighting setups. He would eat great but would not explore the tank. All the way from tons of clown loaches, to just schooling fish to africans to just him alone in the tank. Testing all types of setups for a month+. During this time he was growing but not nearly as fast as I had read online. After a year he was only say 8 inches long.

Here is a pic of him living solo in the 305 getting a little bigger.


After the first 2 years of him living in the 305, I decided to move him inside to see if a different environment would treat him better. A custom tank that is 65x22x30. This is where Hank really exploded in growth. The tank was practically bare bottom with a little sand and he had black phantom tetras, corydoras, haplo cats, elipsifer eel, and plecos with him. You can see him in this video exercising his puffing muscles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eou8FYvUYSI[/youtube]
Here is the link for the video, not working on the forum? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eou8FYvUYSI

In this picture you can see I added more substrate so he could hunt snails like he likes too. I've only ever caught him puffed about 4 times, but every time I do, I try to snap a picture.


Pic with some java fern rocks put in also.

[CoryWM]

Then in 2013 I opened my own fish store. He was moved into his new 340 gallon tank. 77x32x32. He was doing great here. With an overhead sump powered by an fx6 filter. Pothos, peace lillies etc growing out of the top of the tank. Tank was bought used off craigslist. It was imported from vietnam and was custom carved rosewood. Absolutely beautiful.





I should mention at this point he's eating up to half a pound of clams on the half shell a day. He also has many fans. Here is a pic of the coloring contest we did for Hank.


There is even a Hank T-shirt. Me standing next to Mike Wise.


50% water changes were done weekly. Lots of tetras, rainbows, tiretrack eel, fancy plecos, angelfish, roseline sharks were in this tank. All the tetras where in schools of 50+. 80+ rainbows. Nitrates never registered in testing. Pothos was about 30 feet long from feeding off the tank.

[Pufferpunk]

Love the shirt! Hank's not a bad-looking fish either!

[CoryWM]

Then disaster strikes! The tank blows the rear bottom seam at 5:53am and we don't get to the shop until 8pm. We were already going to the shop early to do a fish wholesale run, when I noticed the "Hank Camera" was down. Usually this is a power outage. Not this time though. Hank was out of the water for roughly 2 hours 20 minutes An employee used a keychain flashlight to look into the tank. Hank's eye moved! We rushed and put him into the nearest tank we could think of. Was the 75 gallon neon tetra display tank. 500 neons and lots of vallisneria. Hank was barely breathing at all, couldn't right himself.



The entire store was covered in sand, water and dead fish bodies. A few other fish survived but unfortunately many hundreds did not. We had to take the tank apart to get behind it as it was too heavy to lift with the 4 people we had. It took 8 people to move it in with glass suction cups.



front panel off.


with the panel off we were able to ratchet strap around the aquarium and pull it further out from the wall.


This is what was behind that didn't get carried through the store in the tidal wave.


We are so lucky that Hank didn't get stuck behind the tank as it took 5 hours to finally get behind it. Some fish survived this, the ones that were trapped in the sand. We left around 11pm that night after doing insane amounts of cleanup etc. Hank looked like this:



The get well soon wishes started rolling in for Hank.



For the last month Hank has been living in the 75 gallon aquarium. It's obviously way to small for him. The only other option in the store is a 93 gallon cube which doesn't have a top. I feel moving puffers is risky and chose to keep him stable in the 75 gallon rather than move him and add more risk. While working we caught him exercising his muscle again.


The tank gets pretty much daily 50-70% water changes to keep up with the load. 500 neons, a tire track eel and Hank with only the power of valisneria and a large sponge filter.

[CoryWM]

The week following the disaster I met with a custom tank manufacturer. After talking and weighing options etc, I decided to go with a 72x48x24 360 gallon tank. Half inch acrylic all around with a 3/4 top. This would be put on a custom steel stand with adjustable feet. There would also be an overhead sump and a 1 inch bulkhead for the drain so I can do auto water changes on Hank's tank. In the past my 305 gallon's stand was too short only being about 40 inches tall with an 18 inch tank. Made for a 5 foot tall tank roughly. So this time I had a 48 inch tall stand built that can be extended to 52 if needed. The problem is my door only handles 40 inches. So they made custom legs that can be put on after it's in place. Here are the pics of the stand.



Supports for overhead sump.







About a month later, the stand arrives at my shop from the powder coaters. Which happens to be today.



So now I'm waiting for the tank to arrive on Thursday. The side against the wall and the back will have black vinyl attached to them. So the tank will be viewable on 2 sides. I'm trying to figure out how I want to aquascape the tank and what I want to stock with him. This is what lead me to the forum tonight, trying to get ideas on what other people have done and realized I haven't shared what I had done so far. If anyone has ideas, feel free to share.

Thoughts for decor so far are. Either a huge manzanita stump. I could do a reef rock type wall made out of lace rock and cover it with java fern/anubias etc. Other thought is to to Texas holey rock wall.

Fish thoughts are, I want to breed something in this tank with Hank. As hank could care less about anything that doesn't have a shell on it. Thinking possibly, longfin white clouds, cyprichromis, or Guppies. My other love besides Hank is guppies and everything about me wants to see a million guppies next to hank.

By the way the Hank cam is back up and running, although the temp tank doesn't have any night time lighting. When it's setup on the new bigger tank I'll make sure it can be seen 24 hours a day.
http://www.aquariumcoop.com/hank-cam/

P.S. stay tuned for the new Hank T-Shirt. People wanted a way to help get Hank a new tank. I'll be checking out a physical shirt proof on Wednesday Morning.

[bertie 83]

I'm glad he made it through his ordeal, hanks a fighter

[Pufferpunk]

Wow, what a nightmare! Sure wish you had gone for a 500g tank or bigger for Hank though.

[hadla]

Glad that he is ok! I would have panicked and lost it in a situation like that! Makes me want to switch my tanks to acrylic...

[Pufferpunk]

A friend of mine's reef tank recently shattered. They had to move everything over from they're 150g to a 75.

[hadla]

Yep, my next tank will be acrylic! And when I can, I'll move my current ones also

[luigimbu]

Hi it's great to see he survived the whole ordeal. How big is hank now?

[CoryWM]

I'd say roughly 24 inches including tail as he takes up half the tank when facing one end in the 75 gallon.

[Tripp]

As far as Aquascaping I would go with a partial stump with java moss.
Then add in some dark drift wood sticks of decent diameter that Hank can swim around and thru.
On top of that I would add in a ton of current for him to enjoy

But one thing I have always loved in display tanks... The grass floor/ grass carpet look
This would make it hard for him to hunt snails but would look cool in parts of that tank.

Or just thinking why not make a section of the tank that has a Bi level made of driftwood.

[sgtmyers88]

Wow! Yeah glad he made it.

[hadla]

But one thing I have always loved in display tanks... The grass floor/ grass carpet look
This would make it hard for him to hunt snails but would look cool in parts of that tank.

I love that look too! I'm at the point where I'd pay someone to do that to my 2 fw 10gs! I always admire tanks online and at Aqualife and wish I could get mine to look like that...