salivator puffer

[Troender]

I don't know Hagen's product, but I haven't found any product that works yet (no frozen ones in Norway). What ever they say (of course the people from Hagen would say it works. They try to sell it, you know. No buyers, no money), it has no chance of working. When you know that the bacteria in the filter starts dying a short time after the water flow stops, it goes without saying that they won't survive in a bottle or inside a pill.
What does work, however, is that if you have another filter that is very well cycled, you can steal some of the stuff in it, and transfer it to the new filter. It still will take some cycling to do, but shortens the time very much. You can also put a new filter in a tank where there's another filter going (and try to squeeze out some of the stuff inside the old filter right outside where the new filter sucks in the water), and let them run both for a while. That will also shorten the time it takes to cycle it. But of course, you need another well cycled filter to do both these thing suggestions.

[Boxermom]

BioSpira is the only readily available product that contains the correct LIVE bacteria needed for the biological cycle. Cycle, Stress Zyme, etc., none of the crap-in-a-bottle products work as they do not contain LIVE bacteria. All you do when you add that stuff is increase your bioload with dead stuff, which isn't very useful IMO.

[poffer]

5 in 35 G seems rather silly to me. That would be risking life and health of the fishes.

I find it rather insulting the way you dismiss my ideas on a fishkeeping as "silly". And the fact that you think it would be risking the health and life of a fish is a matter of opinion. certainly one i dont share. I endevour to make sure the water is impeccable. Also if there was a situation of continued aggression then I would be ready to separate the fish.

Jack is not my most active puffer, but he most certainly needs the space in the tank! And I wish I could give him more.

I dont understand why you would wish to give him more space if you intend to keep him on his own. You are right the salivator is not particularaly active. It imo is more important to give this fish plenty plants than vast amounts of space. As long as the space in sufficient to keep water clean and the fish to have areas to explore. In which case i think anything above 15 gallons would be enough. Similar to the minimum size this forum recommends for a figure 8 who i think are much more active.

I think one productive thing to come out of this thread is that does everyone agree that a single pair of Salivator generally doesn't work, there obviously could be exceptions to the rule but in varying tank sizes single pairs seem to ultimately end with the death or injury of the female.

Agreed. When left alone with each other from what I have read on this forum the male seems to kill the female. with Tronders example being a good one. When the two were left alone in the Fish shop (when all the other salivators had been purchased) the male killed the female. I wonder if there had been any deaths before that and how long they were in the tank.

[Troender]

I wonder if there had been any deaths before that and how long they were in the tank.

There were no deaths but this one. They had only had two pairs, and the first pair is most definitely alive. They are owned by Taly here at TPF (who also had to split the male and the female). I don't know how long the salivators had been in the shop, but I know Taly bought her pair in December.

Why I wish I had more room for my Salivator? Because I think that needed tank size is more than having a good water quality. Being it's size, I think it needs more room to have an interesting life (sorry, it's the only way I can say what I mean in English - sometimes I just lack the words). I would go nuts if anyone closed me into a small room, however good the air is. I have seen the same with fishes (I still can't forget the joy of my siamese fighting fish when it came to my home. It had been living in about 1 liter at the pet shop, and here he got 130 liters. I've never ever seen any other fish enjoying the new life so much ). When it comes to my salivator, he is staying much still, but when he moves, I can't help wonder how boring it has to be, reaching the end of the tank pretty soon. I know this sounds like I put human feelings into a fish. I don't. But I've been around fishes enough to know that they have needs as well. And fishes do get bored and depressed from it.

[taly]

http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/vie ... c&&start=0

Here you can read what happened to my salivator pair...
He has NEVER hurt her.... He was just madly in love