My 2 new F8 Puffers

[Shrimpy0z]

Hi all,

I decided to go with F8 puffers to begin with and went down to my LFS to get them today.

I originally wanted to go with a singular F8 puffer in my 4 foot tank, but I saw that the conditions the puffers were kept in were pretty bad, so I decided to get another one since my tank could house at least 2 so that at least 1 more fish was potentially saved from the thunderdome (the bucket they were kept in at the LFS, many were missing fins)

They are currently swimming about and munching on the snails that have proliferated while the tank was being converted from freshwater to brackish. Looks like I won't have to feed them for the next few days.

For now their names are Bean 1 and Bean 2.

[Pufferpunk]

Nice! I would switch the substrate to aragonite sand. I would watch for aggression from 1 to the other. These fish are best kept in singletons or 3+, to dilute the aggression of the stronger to the weaker fish.

[Shrimpy0z]

Nice! I would switch the substrate to aragonite sand. I would watch for aggression from 1 to the other. These fish are best kept in singletons or 3+, to dilute the aggression of the stronger to the weaker fish.

Thanks! If I were to switch the substrate to aragonite sand, can I add it as a layer on top of my gravel? Or must I remove all the gravel because I don't wanna disturb the tank too much right now since I just added those little guys in.

I'll keep a look out for their aggression levels and if it's too much I'll rehome one. For now there was a little chasing around at the start when they both saw the same snail, but other than when snails are involved, they swim next to each other peacefully.

[Pufferpunk]

Be sure there are lots of broken lines of sight. How was the tank cycled? SG?

[Shrimpy0z]

Here's a picture of the tank so that you can see the scape I went with.

The malaysian driftwood has been in my FW fish tanks for 2 years, a lot of the tannins have leeched and they don't alter PH much anymore. There's also plenty of seriyuu stones and I'm planning to add more oyster shells (commonly used in asia for koi keeping in order to buffer PH) into the tank. Both of those help to buffer the PH. The gravel inside the tank has been in the tank since it was FW (around 2 years), so likely bacteria is in it as well.



As for how the tank was cycled, you can see the combination sponge/bio filter on the left, I used existing biomedia that is already cycled from my canister filter that was originally on the this tank. I kept the bacteria alive while transitioning from FW to BW by dosing powdered fritz ammonium chloride to 1ppm every single time ammonia hit 0. Before getting the puffers, I tested for ammonia and nitrites (both were 0) and did a 50% water change. Current water volume is around 70 gallons. SG is at 1.005, tested with my HANNA HI98319 salinity meter.