The Puffer Forum

i wrote in a few weeks ago regarding losing my baby porc " spikey lee ", Anyways updates on what i have been up to!!
i nearly lost heart in it all, and in all honesty i let my system go a bit after he died....but i had a new setup in the spare room that was not quite finished.......So i decided to finish it...throw out the old one and get a new puffer friend. New system i drilled and have 3ft sump, painted the back of the tank cos its so much better than those stick on pictures!!, running on live rock, eheim media, and phosphate remover and carbon. Have 2 overflows one in each corner, and a modified maxijet1200 for water movement ( and trust me there is a LOT of water movement!!. Anyways here is some pics, let me know what you think.....
by the way tankmates are, 1 volitans lionfish, 1 dogface puffer, 1 niger trigger, 1 rabbitfish and one goby type thing thats bops around the sand all day......

Very nice! I just got myself a dogface that looks exactly like that one. Perhaps they were brothers. Nice tank!

Stunning Tank and fish .

Today I saw a dogface puffer in with a lion fish that had to be close to 10 inches from fin to fin. Will they always get along well together? How long have you had these guys staind?

they been together a few weeks now, i put dogface in my old setup for a couple of weeks. They get along okay, the lion has a pop every now and again but it doesnt even bother the puff at all, he just ignores him. As far as i know the lion is only a threat to anything he can get in his mouth.....well he has no chance of getting dogface in his mouth i can assure you!!!

I find marine tanks so amazing.

i was wondering just how the poison spines things works..

because my puffers often swim over my fu manchu.. (especially when clamouring for food) and i can see them brushing over the top of his top fins..

but he never hurts them, they never get 'stung' by his fins...

does the lion actively have to stick his fins into something for the poison to have effect..?

i have 2 lionfish. 1 volitan and 1 spotfin lionfish. My puffers do the same thing. I presume they work the same as on a stonefish that the harder you push down on them the more venom they inject, but dont quote me on that.....just a guess. I also have a rabbitfish which is also venemous but he always lays his spike down when the puffer swims about on top of him....they seem to have paired up and hang out together all the time. I shall take more pics soon of the sump setup etc for you all to see. I presume no one likes it as not had many comments......christ, when i said i had a mbu i got about 200 of them!!!
Maybe i should stick the mbu "sushi" in here for a photo shoot that will get people commenting on my stuff!!!

Thats a beautiful lion and dogface!

Don't feel bad, there are less SW pufferkeepers on this site. The tank looks great, almost looks like a mangrove root system in there! Beautiful fish too.

staindsk1n wrote: I presume no one likes it as not had many comments......christ, when i said i had a mbu i got about 200 of them!!!
Maybe i should stick the mbu "sushi" in here for a photo shoot that will get people commenting on my stuff!!!

New fish keepers could only dream of keeping a beautiful complicated marine tank such as yours. It's been a little slow here since you posted. Your tank looks very natural and beautiful. Your fish are stunning. Some day I hope to progress in fish keeping enough to keep such a beautiful marine tank as yours.

the tank being beautiful sort of went without saying...

just sort of got sidetracked with the spines thing.. sorry


fancy trying some leathers and shrooms... or corals not your thing?

i have done the corals thing in the past mate, i didn't really get much from it in all fairness and with the halide lighting i found as soon as any tiny bits of algae appeared it just grew out of control instantly. My main love is the fish. The old tank i had that i put the dogface in for a couple of weeks had shrooms and polyps but the dogface ate every last one!!!! I was always so sceptical about keeping marine....the best piece of advicce i could give anyone doing it, is only do it with a sump.....cannister filters are a definite no no, they are so high maintenance when run on those. With a sump.....even if only a small one......makes life 10 times easier and fish look 10 times healthier....

i've literally kept to leathers and a green star polyp, so have them under T5's .. so far so good.. no nibbling, but then i guess both puffs are small still < 2 inches a piece... so we'll see what happens in the future..

should be getting a sump with my next marine tank upgrade, more to hide the protein skimmer than anything else, but no doubt it'll be very useful in other ways too.