new puffer new maintenance

[pandalove182]

So I got a new GSP and hes in perfect condition and so is his tank. I recently fed him about a dozen baby snails and now my tank bottom is littered with shells. What would be the best way to clean that? try to siphon even with my sand bottom? stick my hand in their with my attack puffer cruising around? what do you recommend?

Side note: I went to a family owned pet store yesterday and saw a 30 gal tank with about 8 GSP and none of them had their fins nibbled and all looked quite healthy except for one. They were about 2 - 3 in. ( bigger than most GSP's ive seen at pet stores). Any comments on that?

[jimi]

so the snail shells dont realy cause much of a problem my puffer tanks have a ton of snail and clam and mussel shells on the bottom ( they are starting to make there own bedding of it ) buti have not seen any problems with such yet if you must get hem out for some reason then i suppose your hand or the net is your best choice ( i dont think your puffer will attack you) and the gsps in your lfs where way over stocked and its good they where mostly healthy but its an unfortunate side affect of stocking in a sales environment they can possibly give every one the room they need so they have to cram them in although it worked that one time there bioload is 8 times what the tank can handle ( although most fish stores have a communal filter kinda thing going) and if you try to recreate it at home you will probably end up with 2 puffers or less within a few months

[Pufferpunk]

jimi, I can't read your run-on posts anymore.

If the pile of shells gets too deep, it can cause a problem with nitrate, as foodstuff will wind up there. You should be able to use a larg-weave net to sift though the sand.

[julianchan]

Congrats on the GSP!

I think jimi has to be running some kind of script to remove punctuation marks....

[Agnate]

Yeah, you don't have to worry about the shells unless you get a very large amount of them. Shells are primarily made of calcium, so if you have a lower pH in your tank, they will eventually be reduced to nothing.

Like PufferPunk says, if you start to get a layer of shells, just use a net or turkey baster to clean them out.