Few questions from a newbie!

[untamed]

OK I finally did it. I got my figure eight puffers!!

I've had tropical fish for years, then I went to cichlids which were fun, but cichlids GROW so quickly and because of aggression its recommended to over populate the tank. (really it is) So after a year or two you got to do one or two things get rid of fish or get a bigger tank. Going with a bigger tank....however that left me with a 30 gal with no one but a poor all alone itty bitty beta thinking he was the king. (yes he has a different tank normally)

....what to do?? Go find more fish!

I had seen a F8 at the my fav LFS, asked about him and decide that I needed a lot more info before buying.

Few days later while on the other side of town, I went into another fish store...just b/c I was already there why not? they had just gotten in a shipment of F8's however they were in with the fresh water cichlids. I asked the employee what brackish fish were doing in a tank with FW. I was told that they were FW, and that how most people keep them. He said he had even had them in with community tropicals. When asked how long his F8 puffers lived I was told about six month maybe...i dont know.
At this point I had looked into them enough to know that is was horrible!
So I bought all four of the F8 puffers that they had. I know that they will just get more in but at least I saved the four I could, gave the manager a good chewing too.....

Ok so now I've got four F8's they are all currently in the same 30 gal tank, I'm looking for another tank to split them into but one will have to do for now.

They were in FW, so I'm slowly changing the water to brackish. Very slowly mixing in about a teaspoon a day.

So to the questions.

Snails...I've gotten about ten of those little FW snails from the store, what is the best way to get them going??

Coral: I've read that puffers need coral to chew on, at the LFS the guy wanted to sell to me a HUGE chunk of coral...while it was very pretty it was 95.00. I have a BIG piece of blue coral and another chuck of white that I found on the beach a long time ago.
Can I wash these off and use them?
Or do you have a better idea?

Plants: are there any plants that live/grow do ok with puffers and brackish water?

Any other suggestions will be welcome!

[Hilly]

Welcome Untamed


First off snails, chuck the 10 you've got in a tank/container (5-10 gallons) add a heater and a filter and feed and they will start to breed. A big water change on this tank every week (around 80%) will keep them healthy and in no time you will have a good feeding stock.

You dont need to put coral in the tank, some nice rockwork will work just as well. Steer clear of bogwood as the salinity is raised it will begin to rot.

Do a search on the forum there is a thread somewhere on brackish plants and what will work.

Also I recommend reading Neale Monks brackish FAQ, plenty of good info in there for you to digest.
http://homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/ ... part1.html