The Puffer Forum

Hi, I currently have a pebble type substrate for my puffers each in separate tanks, but I'm thinking down the road of changing this to either crushed coral or sand. Is one preferred over the other for these guys or not recommended? I know I've heard good things about the crushed coral, but I would like the sand also. Part of the reason I want to get rid of the pebbles is whenever I put a snail in the puffers ignore them and the snails end up hiding under the pebbles and never coming up on the glass.

Thanks!

well personally i use play sand! now im sure some people dont recommend it but i have never had a problem with it and a 50lb bag is 4.75! so i mean if you have a bunch of extra money laying around go for the crushed coral but if your on a budget then use either play sand or pool filter sand (it comes cleaner so you dont have to rinse it as much and its a little bit coarser, but a little harder to find) pool filter sand runs like $15/100lbs. these are the cheapest ways to do a sand substrate and are completly safe!

I've heard sand can be a bit of a pain to clean, and you have to stir it regularly to make sure no anaerobic pockets build up (which can lead to dead fish or huge spikes in the tank's chemistry). Nothing to fret about, but it's a couple things you need to consider.

I would suggest crushed coral, though, if only because it will buffer your water hardness and allow you to maintain a higher pH for the puffers. Pool sand is definitely cheaper, though!

if you need to buffer the PH you can just put a little bag of the crushed coral in the filter. you just stir the sand like you would if you were siphoning gravel to make sure to block the anerobic bacteria. i just love the look of sand so ive found ways around the problems lol plus if you live somewere like me our tap water if like 7.6 PH so by the time it gets salt in it the PH is already like 8.2

Yeah, the pH of the tap water here is horrible, I've found that acid buffer in my other aquariums works great at lowering it, but I haven't used that stuff in my puffer's aquariums yet. I also like the look of the sand and want to try it out, just not sure what to expect since I've never used it before. My biggest concern would be water changes and vacuuming that it would get too disturbed, but it might be ok.

Thanks again!

Just a side note (it's 1:30am so I'm not sure if this was mentioned or not, I'm too tired to read posts, lol) but sand needs to be stirred at least once a week or so to keep pockets of toxic gas from forming.

We use sand from home depot, like cobra1713 said it's cheap for a 50ilb bag and you really don't use much. It looks natural and actually cleaning it is easier cause all the left over food and poo stays on top and doesn't get buried in the gravel. Our filters have been working fine. I have bio wheels and my hubby has a canister filter for his chilid tank thats 57 gallons. And I heard if you postion your powerheads just right all the leftover gets sucked right up in the filter for you. I know I saw a digram on the freshwater forum that shows how to use the powerheads that way. If I can find it later today I'll try to get it.

thats a good idea wth the power head, probably near the bottom aimint towards the side? so it blows all of the crap towards the filter intake? i gotta try that, cep my only power head is like 400 GPH and its only a 30 gal tank, might be a little overkill lol

Here's the diagram I saw on other forum... I hope no one gets mad at me using this pic. I just think it was a good diagram and helped me alot. I use a powersweep 214 for a 30 gallon and cycles 160 gph and it has the sponge filter on the bottom.
.
One of the staff members of the freshwater posted this for someone and it made us go out and buy powerheads to do this because its SO much easier cleaning the tanks, so thanks to f8fan.

I find extending the filter intakes to just above the surface of the substrate greatly increases how well they work.

i personaly used crushed coral and i can find it for 398 for 5 pounds ( not to much when you look at it but still for 8 bucks i can cover a 20 long)