The Puffer Forum

That thank is really very attractive, but it is not a tank for a comfortable breeding colony of DPs. The plant density needs to many times greater. That is a conflict arena for DPs IME. There is far too much open space and far too many and complete full-tank lines of sight.

That tank would be wonderful for a school of small colorful fish. I would not ever use it for DPs. Even SAPs would need significantly more cover IME.

It is a beautiful tank but wrong for these fish.

RTR can you post a pic/link to a tank that you do believe is suitable for DP's. I am leaning towards stocking my 75 with dps

I spent probably $250 on the wood, and $100 on plants. 70 pounds of sand over a peat carpet. 2 large canister filters. T5HO 39 watt lights. I didn't really spare any expense.

I have been very lucky so far. No major problems, no illnesses or unexplained deaths. Water chemistry is always ideal. Just a bit of hair algae I'm combating with fertilizer and co2.

RTR wrote:That thank is really very attractive, but it is not a tank for a comfortable breeding colony of DPs. The plant density needs to many times greater. That is a conflict arena for DPs IME. There is far too much open space and far too many and complete full-tank lines of sight.

That tank would be wonderful for a school of small colorful fish. I would not ever use it for DPs. Even SAPs would need significantly more cover IME.

It is a beautiful tank but wrong for these fish.

I''m doing what I can to grow the plants. I have baby java ferns now. I can tie them to the two center drift woods to break the line of sight from left to right... that should help. I'll post a new picture after.

A female attacked a male today, during feeding time. He puffed and played dead while she locked her teeth in his belly. It ended with me trying to put a net between them.

Your kids need a time out.

If you can see clearly from one end of the tank to the other, it is too thinly planted. I bred DPs in 15s or 20-longs, and it was difficult to see from front to back anywhere in the tank and totally impossible end to end. Both set-ups had one male and 2-3 females. There were 2-3 fist-sized Java moss clumps in each tank mid- to upper water in/on driftwood. They only bred in the Java moss.

Sorry, those tanks were not photographed. They were not display tanks, pure utility.

That really IZ a purdy tank, heh heh.
I have 3 dps and still cant tell their sexes yet, alas all I had to choose from were juvenile specimens from my LFS. However, I have one that is more aggresive than the others... I have been able to alleviate this by adding LOTS of plants. Might I recommend Java Moss and Sword plants? I don't have my Library set up yet or I would send you a link of my tank pic.
Best of luck!

More plants:

I would live in that tank

I have an 8 gallon snail tank too. Ramshorn snails, started from 4 adults from 2 sources, and 2 Gardneri Killifish: