The Puffer Forum

Hey Everyone,

I have a penguin biowheel that's for a 50gal on a 30gal tank. I'm wondering what I might use to add more oxygen to the tank? I'm reading articles on protein skimmers, power heads and gosh I don't know what else. It gets pretty confusing and daunting. Do you reccomend something else for oxygen? I'm going to try and get a GSP hopefully .

The tank has no fish for now except for one ghost shrimp in there having a blast. That's a bit of a long story. I've got some work to do on the tank before the GSP.

I did a search on here but I haven't found the info I was looking for. What else do I need? I have the heater and plants etc. I'm just wondering about anything else that would help water quality and such.

Hugs, Beth

I actually have that filter on my 30 gallon tank as well as an extra 10 gallon filter I had lying around so I figured I would stick it on Milton's tank as well.

Protein skimmers don't work until your SG is at 1.018 which it wouldn't be for quite awhile if you get a small gsp.

I don't know if you really need anything extra for oxygen, all I have on my tanks is the two filters, they make bubbles so I figure its fine. I did have an airstone in there but it makes a lot of noise and the tank is by my bed so I wasn't a fan of that. It also made the water evaporate more quickly and caused salt creep to some extent.

As far as water quality goes, water changes are the thing to do! And if you don't have a gravel vacuum you should pick one up so then you can suck out all the waste, leftover food and what not.

Thank You Shannon.

I got my first 3 F8's and lost all of them. At first I bought 2 and one of them didn't make it through the night. Got another that afternoon and things just went slowly down hill. The FS where I got them is really awful. I've seen picked clean skeletons in some of their tanks. I guess we'll never know for sure but I think Rocco on here was probably right in that I had a ph spike. The good people on here held my hand through this on the hospital forum.

So anyway I'm redoing things and I'm going to try to be even more fanatical about cleanliness. I've thought about getting another, but smaller filter like you have done.

I have an old Eheim canister here that I never got instructions for and I can't figure out how to set it up. I've looked for instructions on line and so far nothing. Maybe if I call the co. they can help. I believe it's in excellent shape. It was part of a 30gal that I bought from a friend of a friend. I also believe it's simple to set up if you know what you're doing.

I have the gravel vac. I've had FW tanks for MANY years but I'm a total greehorn with all of the brackish stuff. I've got the tank up to 1.008. I was checking everything else about every 2-3days.

BTW, about how long does it take before the GSP is living in the 1.022 range? How many mths or yrs? I'm just curious.

Thanks for listening to me ramble. I love talking to you all.

Warm Hugs, Beth

SpockthePuffer wrote:I actually have that filter on my 30 gallon tank as well as an extra 10 gallon filter I had lying around so I figured I would stick it on Milton's tank as well.

Protein skimmers don't work until your SG is at 1.018 which it wouldn't be for quite awhile if you get a small gsp.

I don't know if you really need anything extra for oxygen, all I have on my tanks is the two filters, they make bubbles so I figure its fine. I did have an airstone in there but it makes a lot of noise and the tank is by my bed so I wasn't a fan of that. It also made the water evaporate more quickly and caused salt creep to some extent.

As far as water quality goes, water changes are the thing to do! And if you don't have a gravel vacuum you should pick one up so then you can suck out all the waste, leftover food and what not.

Not sure about Eheims but I'm sure someone might have an idea about setting one up.

As a GSP gets bigger the sg is risen. There was a thread on here about how fast GSPs grow. From what I gathered it wasn't very fast for most people, but some GSPs seemed to grow really quickly too. I've had Milton since october and he hasn't grown at all I don't think. I think as a general rule it might take a year or two for them to reach sw range.

SpockthePuffer wrote:Not sure about Eheims but I'm sure someone might have an idea about setting one up.

Hubby and I looked all over the net and were surprised that even the Eheim site doesn't have instructions. However we think we've located some pieces missing. We got the number for the part and so on. I really hope it will help with water quality since they are such messy buggers. Once we get the art I think it's going to be so easy to get it going.


As a GSP gets bigger the sg is risen. There was a thread on here about how fast GSPs grow. From what I gathered it wasn't very fast for most people, but some GSPs seemed to grow really quickly too. I've had Milton since october and he hasn't grown at all I don't think. I think as a general rule it might take a year or two for them to reach sw range.

That's about what I thought. Are you the one with Milton? I swear that's the cutest name. So far I haven't been able to think of a new name. Of course I won't steal yours.

Hope you're doing well.

Hugs, beth

lol, yes I'm the one with Milton, of course sometimes I call him Miltypoo, he is my little baby. I also have a valentini puffer named Wilbur. I try to think of the cutest names possible for my puffs, lol

Beth, take a picture of all the Eheim parts you have, and we'll show you how to set everything up. I imagine you have the 2213 model (or something close like a 2217), and they're pretty easy to set up once you know how! I had the same problem as you because I bought mine used, but I didn't know which end the water came in/out, which made it a bit difficult.

If you know how to put it all together, then there are a couple tricks to getting it to flow properly. If you can't get water to go through, you can try two tactics. The first tactic involves sucking the water from the output hose, which can be gross (I don't like this method). The second method is to tilt the canister about 90 degrees forward (until its horizontal to the floor), and then tilting it straight back up. On older filters, this can take a while (I've spent 20 minutes trying to get one started up), but once it's started, it's usually pretty good for a while. If you don't overstock the tank, filter the gravel, and don't overfeed, you don't have to clean your filters all that often, so it's not a big problem!

Also, if you have the canister that is green (the 2213 to 2217 models), the water comes out of the top nozzle, and comes in through the bottom nozzle. You'll know when it's running properly when you don't hear any noise from the canister, even when tilting it around and such.

Hope that helps! If you need more assistance, take some pictures of the canister so we know what model you have and such!

that's what i was thinking, tell us the model and we'll tell you how to set it up...

if it's old then remember to wash it well first.


I'm interestes in the PH spike theory, did you swap from using RO to tap... or vise versa very quickly...?

Can't think how else you'd get a big Ph spike as you were introducing salt slowly.

Either way, the key has to be getting good fish to start with... so keep looking for a better shop, please don't go back to that one.. they do not deserve your, or anyones business iff they treat their fish like that.

Hey Paul. I knew it was you that I saw talking about the 2213 Eheim when I was going through older posts.
Thats what I have, the green one. We did find a picture with the parts and it looks like I need the impeller set.
I swear I saw pieces of that but who knows where it went. I got the impeller set priced for $20 at one FS. The picture we saw had the diagram to show what hose went where and what they did, thank goodness.

Gosh, I just don't know if I'd be patient enough to get that thing going. One of my bad qualities is I don't have a lot of patience with mechanical things. If the computer messes up I've got a minute or 2 of patience and then I'm asking hubby to fix it. He said he'd help with getting it going though. But then again, I'm having so much fun with all of this. What to do, what to do? Would the canister be better than another filter for keeping the tank clean? That's a big issue too. I need that for when I'm sick and might not be able to be quiet as diligent.

The FW fish sure weren't much work. I always had tetras and barbs. I have a friend that had some black skirt tetras and he swore you could take them out of the tank, beat them with a hammer, throw them back into the tank and they'd swim off. Don't worry though, those fish had the best of everything. That's about like the FW fish that I always had. Having this new fragile little guy is definitely a new journey. Gosh he's so cute. Think he'd get mad if I kissed him?

Agnate wrote:Beth, take a picture of all the Eheim parts you have, and we'll show you how to set everything up. I imagine you have the 2213 model (or something close like a 2217), and they're pretty easy to set up once you know how! I had the same problem as you because I bought mine used, but I didn't know which end the water came in/out, which made it a bit difficult.

If you know how to put it all together, then there are a couple tricks to getting it to flow properly. If you can't get water to go through, you can try two tactics. The first tactic involves sucking the water from the output hose, which can be gross (I don't like this method). The second method is to tilt the canister about 90 degrees forward (until its horizontal to the floor), and then tilting it straight back up. On older filters, this can take a while (I've spent 20 minutes trying to get one started up), but once it's started, it's usually pretty good for a while. If you don't overstock the tank, filter the gravel, and don't overfeed, you don't have to clean your filters all that often, so it's not a big problem!

Also, if you have the canister that is green (the 2213 to 2217 models), the water comes out of the top nozzle, and comes in through the bottom nozzle. You'll know when it's running properly when you don't hear any noise from the canister, even when tilting it around and such.

Hope that helps! If you need more assistance, take some pictures of the canister so we know what model you have and such!

I bet he'd look at your lips like shrimp.