The Puffer Forum

Go fake. It's easier and you probably don't have enough lighting for live plants.

okay then, I'll go down the fake path, for substrate I was thinking black sand, is there a fav for puffers

Sand is the preferred substrate, yes.
Some puffers like to bury, in which fine sand is best, but I don't think dwarfs bury. Also, waste and uneaten food can't get trapped in the sand, it just sits on the top, making cleaning easier. If you have soft water you definitely need sand or crushed coral to make your water hard, puffers don't like soft water. I live in FL and we have stupid hard water, which means it's perfect
I have been seeing children's play sand or pool filter sand being suggested a lot lately. Aragonite sand is also very popular with puffers, I think that's probably the most common. Don't waste your money on "live" sand, it'll just make a mess of your tank... lots of dead bacteria that will only cause an ammonia bloom.
I personally use gravel, black with my Fig8 & red with my goldfish, but that's just me.

Where do you get black sand?

I saw some in my LFS, but I live in cali

Suuper cool, I'd rather have black sand than black gravel.
I saw black sand when I went to the Philippines, I just got a mental image of hefting bags of it into a plane.. haha.
But that sounds awesome. Sand is good

Oh, and also, I know this is off topic but how do you use an aquarium vacuum?

Here's a video where she mentions a couple ways to go about doing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rny12X9KaI
I've heard of sucking on the end, shaking it in the water until it creates a suction...

I just bought one of the siphons that has a hand pump, but sometimes they don't sell them.

I know it's a stretch but would I be able to fit an Oto or two with a single Dp in my 10g

sexy looking puffers.

I have 1 DP in a 20g tank. I see him all the time, he follows my every movement around his tank and likes to swim right at the front. They are such cute little fish with huge personality, i doubt 10g would be enough for 1 DPs personality

I've kept 3 dwarf puffers in a 10 gallon. They get along fine with the otto I had in there (although Otto's as a rule do better in groups).
The key is not putting more than 1 male in the tank. 2 or more males in a tank that size will fight, usually to the death.
I had 1 male & 2 females. This can be hard if you get them very young, as they are hard to sex when they are really small.
I had some live java moss and a couple river rocks & a buddha statue to break sight lines.
Had a 10 gal hang on power filter in addition to a dual sponge filter driven by an air pump (this one was rated for 30 gallons i believe).
The puffers can hide very easily if they want too, but generally always come to the front when they see me.

Lol, I also had 3 ghost shrimp in there as well. They were added so the puff's could hunt them, but they ended up being permanent residents.

I've since moved to a house, and moved my DP's into a 50 gallon planted aquarium and added 4 otto's.

You don't a huge amount of light depending on which plants you get.

My puffer tank is 40L, I've got 1DP and after a bit of a mishap with syphoning the other tank now 2 Otos and a shrimp in with him and they're all fine together. I would love to upgrade and get a few more DPs though, I'm keeping an eye on ebay!

My DP tank has Anubias, Amazon Sword, Vallis and Twisted Vallis and they're all doing really, really well. I don't have any special lighting just the bog standard lights that came with the tank.

I know that this thread is sorta old...lol. But do I need a powerful light for java ferns

I had a dp for about a year and a half.
Try to make sure your dp will eat frozen food otherwise it could be tricky live food.
My dp used to eat Whiteworm (the most practical live food) and then the odd snail from the Lfs.
Snails can bring in bad stuff , stuff like ich etc so quaranteen them before.
My dp was kept about 27c to help prevent any ich.
Clean water is good. I used to do 2 weekly water changes of 10 litres a time.
Use soluable vitamins in the water.
Dps at the lfs are babies so sexing is tricky. 2 males would be tricky also.
Real plants are better as they soak up waste.
Fertilize plants due to too clean water regime. Blue green algae can be an issue with too clean water, increase water flow if necessary.
Otos are really tricky to keep. I had a baby Ancistrus do the cleaning and then sold when she got too big.
I had one dp in 10 Gallons. Happy fish!
Try to keep from putting others fishes in with them as dps bite!

Cheere jerry