The Puffer Forum

I have had some luck with snails. I got 2 yellow and 1 black apple/mystery snails. They were all moving around for 1 week. Now they are dead. My puffers killed but did not eat them?? Or they could have died from the SG lvl. It was at 1.006 at the time of the snails. Since then i have bumped it to 1.015. I have ghost shrimp in there. don't know how long they will last. But they look fine...

Please post your Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate levels.

It was probably the SG that killed them.

However, with all your SG fluctuations I'd like to see where your aquarium levels are at.

Thanks for the info on the snails. I might look into the BBGs how many would be happy in a 20 gallon with the F8? It would be nice to have something help with the mess she leaves behind. I have been vacuuming with the weekly water change but I know I can't get it all.


And ya she is pretty small a little over a half an inch but she is tenacious! She had the roundest and whitest belly at my LFS(which luckily keeps them in brackish water) and I loved the 8 on her back.

Nearite snails do great in BW. But the brown stuff isn't algae, it's diatoms. You're gonna have to clean that off yourself.

zebra NERITE Snails ...

Nerite snails love diatoms.

I really think that you need to stop swinging your SG around so much. Figure 8's don't even require an SG of 1.015. They do good in SGs of 1.005 - 1.008. The only thing you're going to do by moving your SG up and down so much is cause your aquarium to crash because you will have killed off the needed bacteria.

Heah, it was very early when I typed that...

Figure 8's will be fine bewteen SG1.003 and SG1.005, you could take it to SG1.008 if you like but I can't see any real benefit.

Others have had luck with Nerite snails but when I added a couple I had to move them to my mudskipper tank because of constant harrassment, they would eventually have been picked off the glass or eaten when they turned over - which they inevitably do from time to time. I know we feed them snails but they are a less sustainable option compared to pond snails and ramshorns due to their breeding cycle which can't be replicated in captivity.

Bumblebee Gobies can't be classed as a clean up crew and are actually less of a clean up crew than the puffers themselves because the gobies pick food out of the water column and the puffer will happily turn vertical and pick food off the substrate.

The best way to keep algae down in a F8 tank is to keep lighting, phosphate and nitrate levels down to a minimum unless you are trying to grow plants thereby you will need them to be growing healthily to 'outcompete' the algae and keep it manageable.

If you want to add BBG's then add no more than 1 per 20cm diameter of the base of your tank.