The Puffer Forum

Sounds like the "puffer-bug" has already bitten you bad! Chalk up another one that's to come to the puffer-side!

You may be right!

I had to restrain myself a while back when there was a stars and stripes puffer in the LFS in quite a small tank. I've lost count of the times I've had to not buy a porcupine puff!

I'll check the water for ammonia etc when I get in and before they do. I hope to have got the right mix of open water for swimming and hidey holes. There's a thin layer of playpit sand and coral sand in there to give me a bit more hardness and try to stabilise the pH a bit.

I'll be watching for ammonia and nitrite, testing daily as this is a tank assembled using mature powerfilters/sand from existing tanks. Shouldn't be a problem but I'll be looking for any spikes. I'll also montior the pH, dissolved O2, hardness and nitrate but slightly less often. Temp seems OK at 24C.

I've got bloodworm, marine mix, mysis and a mix of whole prawns, squid etc as frozen food. There's various snails around and shore crabs but I'll try to avoid these because I don't feel like feeding live crabs if I don't have to plus the disease risk and toxin bouild up in crabs. Might hold off feeding for 24 hrs...

Might even post a pic or two, if I can get my camera to work (dodgy on/off switch).

Boing, boing, boing!

That's probably a good idea about withholding food for 24 hours, and we'd love to see some photos! (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

Well, they're in!

I put about a fifth of a tankful of mature water from an existing tank where the mature power filters were and added the filters before letting the beasties out after mixing water for 30mins and they seemed fine - swam out of the bag and charged around investigating. The sand I put in should be 'live' too.

After seeing them trying to eat either the odd bit of poo or coarse bits of coral sand, I gave in and fed them a cube of bloodworm which was inhaled in a couple of minutes.

Checked ammonia, nitrite - flat zero at lights out last night but will check it again tonight. Need to measure the nitrate to get a handle on what's going on biologically so I'll measure the three of those daily.

When I came down very early this morning and switched the room light on, the loonies were already up and buzzing around - thought they might be crespular.

Try to get some pics tonight. BTW these are more like 3" than 4" just now.

Contemplating putting a smallish external power filter on also. Have to wash it out and change the media for new though, it's in full marine on an MT tank at the mo. I do have more mature spong that could go in that. Good thing about this power filter is it has a big UV steriliser on the return in case anything goes wrong bug wise. I hesitate to use it for now because it will kill any filter bacteria floating about when the tank might be wobbly biologically.

I'm really watching for any ammonia or nitrite spikes because if it's going to happen it'll probably be now...

Oh, just an aside:

Of the five Celons there, two went home with staff from the shop. I've got two and only one went to a 'normal' fishkeeper - at least I'm assuming they are normal but they won't be for long!

Hey, that's great news! They really are nice puffers and I think you will see very quickly that they have a huge personality. Good luck!

I really want to look after these - even the guy that owns the shop told me to look after them and he's never said that before!

I'll concentrate on getting the tank stable biologically and watch for any signs of disease, then get into slowly raising the salinity and get them into a bigger tank sooner rather than later. As soon as the Pacu's in the vat they can have his tank.

I'd also better try to get them eating some snails or shrimp because those teeth will be growing...

saw 1 of these puffers for the 1st time 2day theyre gorgeous!! soggydrysuit, is ur lfs by any chance fish alive??

Yes, he's/she's the last one of five. The owner said he'll take him home - unless someone is really interested, I presume!

Mine are just the same as that one

Did you see the hairy ones in the tank next door? There were some amazons, too, I think.

What are the odds? This forum has people from all over the world on it and were in the same shop!

yeh they had the hairy 1s last time i went aswell the ceylon that was left is cute man!! sure it was smiling lool ive just been 2day, and got an irrubesco + another dwarf puffer
and yep, it is madness that we have both ended up here isnt it

I put about a fifth of a tankful of mature water from an existing tank where the mature power filters were and added the filters before letting the beasties out after mixing water for 30mins and they seemed fine - swam out of the bag and charged around investigating. The sand I put in should be 'live' too.

If this is your extent of cycling, I'm afraid you're going to have big problems. How was the sand "live"? How long did you acclimate them? You really need to check nitrate too, because if there is some, then you know the biological system is working. What SG?

(I don't know how I missed this thread was in the wrong forum all this time!)

No, I added two large internal power filters also!

These had been in with my pacu for the last three months after shutting another tank down!

Sounds good then.

Specific gravity is 1.00000, the same as the shop water!

The honey sand was also in pacu tank but the coral sand was washed but new!

Ammonia is 0, maybe trace but less than 0.25 ppm (you'd expect something after this upheval).
Nitrite is zero
Nitrate is 10ppm (old tank water as part of the mix)
pH is 7.8
temp is 24C

Did a 50% after dectecting trace ammonia...

Lil piggies!