Building an Mbu Tank

[crazedpuffer]

Have fun doing water changes zombie!
Corey-Wouldnt surprise me either way. Chances are yes but it could be very risky since they are so soft, but the way they blend in with sand will help tremendously.

[SpockthePuffer]

If you do get the tank built we will all have to take a field trip to your house and see it!

[zombiefetus]

I wonder if FW stingrays would work with an Mbu?

I was wondering the same thing. I love stingrays, and I've always wanted some, but I wasn't sure how they'd work together. I hear stingrays are best in a species tank

If you do get the tank built we will all have to take a field trip to your house and see it!

lol, sure, I wouldn't mind. We could have a Puffer Forum meetup, lol.

[mikeosoft]

I'm not sure cement would be cheaper once you consider all the rebar that will be required for it. Cement is really only strong under pure compressive loads, so you will need a lot of rebar (as shown on the MFK tank) to hold everything together.

Most of the monster cement tanks that I have seen actually use the walls of a basement as support. That way all the earth on the outside of the walls is holding the tank together.

[Hilly]

Stingrays are not a good idea with large puffers, there have been incidents where Mbu's have been barbed by the stingrays, ad stingrays getting nipped by them ruining their discs.

[manutius]

The other thing about using wood instead of cement is that is better for the environment

Play sand would be fine but keeping it clean would be hard and stopping it getting sucked through the filters would be an issue. I think river rounded rocks and fine gravel would be a better bet. This would provide a great hiding place for critters too and would provide the Mbu with hours of stalking and hunting opportunities. Imagine seeing a puffer acting naturally trying to work out how to get that little crab or shrimp out from behind the rocks

As for stingrays, definaltely no for the reasons that Hilly stated. Mbu often search the gravel for foo by blowing jets of water into it. They may bite a ray to see if its edible and get punctured by the barb I bel;eive eels to be a bad idea for the same reason, the inquisitive puffer might just nip it. The problem is a little nip from an Mbu results in a large chunk of flesh being taken !!

I hope that you are not taking my points as negative, I don't mean them to be I just want to highlight the difficulties in getting it right for these gorgeous fish.

I hope you p[ull it off and when you do I'll be first in the line to shake your hand

[Hilly]

Large river rocks are a nightmare as a main substrate, crap would fall in between the gaps, you would never get it out. A gravity fed overflow wouldnt effect a substrate like sand but it could be an absolute nightmare keeping clean. Normal gravel would be the least headache or just leave the bottom bare and paint the board under the tank black or something.

[manutius]

yeah agreed but I meant a pocket of rocks rather than a whole floor of them, I think that sand is just a headache. Fine grade gravel and long arms to gravel vac or maybe a snorkel

[Hilly]

Even pockets would create a place were crud could deposit and build up, moving them would require a lot of effort. In a 1500 gallon tank any substrate chosen is going to be a headache to vacuum the dimesions of it dictate so.

[manutius]

Maybe an industrial whisk?

[zombiefetus]

Hm. Not sure what I'm going to do about the substrate. Maybe part sand, and part rock or gravel.

I would like to look as natural as possible, and I wanted to add some large live plants. What do you think about things like Mangrove and Bamboo?

I think this calls for a trip to Shedd Aquarium :O

And a little off topic, but a few days ago a new grocery store opened up and they have a huge selection of live clams and oysters for decent prices, so now feeding the Mbu got a lot easier. It's the only place in the area with any sort of live seafood. I picked up a few freshwater clams for my GSP and when I told the guy I wanted 4 of them he looked so confused. He's like "just.... 4? not 4 pounds?" lol. They had huge live crabs for $2.99 too. I was so excited about it, my friends thought I was nuts.

[CoreyK]

I imagine feeding rays with a puffer in the tank would be difficult as well, as puffers tend to be greedy.

As for substrate, I personally think sand would be a good choice, especially very fine sand that you could pack down. I can't imagine any sort of vacuum or filter being able to pick up any significant amount of finely packed sand - it withstands constant wave action in many lakes.
Not sure how live plants would take to a substrate like that though.

Have you thought about lighting? Keeping live plants in a tank that deep would require some serious wattage.

[spoot]

Depth would be the problem with live plants mostly. If you covered the top of the tank with floating plants, you could do with much less powerful lights, and it would be a great veggie filter. Just harvest a bundle every little while and you can sell it to local fish keepers.

It think bamboo releases poisons but not exactly sure. I'd be worried about any large live plant growing roots and piercing the tank, but you could get a large piece of drift wood as the center piece in the tank and it would look very cool.

[Pufferpunk]

As for substrate, I personally think sand would be a good choice, especially very fine sand that you could pack down.

Packed down, fine sand is exactly what you don't want. This is the kind of sand that develops anerobic pockets of toxic gasses, if not thoroughly stirred weekly.

[manutius]

Yep spot on PP, and boy does it stink when you disturb it. Rotten eggs anyone?

As for big undemanding plants I would champion the giant vallis, I have some in my tank that is over 2metres long, i'll put some pics up soon. I think you would have to grow them out out to a good size in nother tank first thoguh unless you are gonna have very high wattage bulbs. Also many anubia on bits of wood will look nice too