The Puffer Forum

Hello to all! I have just gotten a new tank, about 115-liters, and I've got it full of water, brand new filter in place and heater on. The tank has been going only for 24 hours. How long should I wait before I put my two SAP's in this new tank? I don't want to kill them because they are doing well so far. So anyone with any information is greatly appreciated. Just for the record, I now have four Dwarf Puffers, and now 2 South American Puffers. I do love them and they are addictive, but not quite ready for brackish or saltwater yet. Thank you.

let the tank cycle for 3-4 weeks min before introducing any fish. all the natual bacteria you need is already in the water just not in the quantities to support fish as yet thats why you have to be patient.

Other potions i will suggest is look up fishless cycling, either by ammonia, Food etc.

Okay, but what do I do during that 3-4 weeks? Am I putting ANY fish at all in the tank? I am leaving it running all day and every day? How does beneficial bacteria get built up if there isn't any fish in the tank? And while I'm at it, what is the best temperature for the SAP's? Right now they are in my big tank with all my other fish, but I want to move them to this new tank I've just gotten. The temp is about 76F in the big tank. I haven't gotten my plants yet, but have some plants coming to put in the tank this week.

Alright,

There's a very good article on this forum about fishless cycling. Click on the "learn" heading at the top of this page and go to puffer library. This explains what you need to do very well.

The basic idea is to add food or pure ammonia regularly. This in effect emulates the affect of having fish in the tank and the filter matures accordingly. Test for ammonia and nitrites in your tank. Once they are at zero carry out a water change and then its safe to add fish. The time this takes depends on whether you cycle with food or ammonia.

The article explains this much better though so I recomend reading that. Then you can ask specifics if you are still unsure.

what i would suggest is run the tank 24/7 add a very small sprinkle of food one a day which will break down into waste and the bacteria will feed off this alternativly use a chemical such as safe start or similar and dose accordingly. Test the water once a week for 2 weeks then every 2-3 days there after until the readings are 0 0 0 preferably and add fish making sure the tank can support the dioload i.e. 1Letre per 1cm of fish.

before addign the fish acclimitise them to the new water over a duration of a few hours incasethere is a difference of PH / KH

After cycling the tank (whether with food, hardy fish, etc), I would add OTHER fish and ensure that everything is properly setup.

Puffers are very sensitive to poor and varying water conditions, so I would not add them until you were sure everything was cycled and ready for them.

Where are the SAPs now?

Yes, where are you keeping them now?

If you have another freshwater tank running, you can "steal" established gravel, decorations or filter media to jump start the bio filter in your new tank. I've done that many many times.

Depending on how much you move over, you could either move the SAP's in right away, or keep feeding a pinch of food or few drops of ammonia every day for a week or so to let it establish further. Then one big water change, and it should be ready for the fish.

Hi, right now my SAP's are in my big community tank. The only problem is that my big tank doesn't have gravel, it has sand on the bottom, I wanted to try that as opposed to gravel because I heard it was better for my Corydoras's. But however, the gravel that's in the "new" tank isn't new gravel, it was from an existing tank that I kept the gravel from. I drained the water from it, but never properly washed it, so I thought it might "jump start" the tank so I can put fish in sooner.
I did put 3 Tetras in today just to sort of get it going. I don't like the idea of putting straight ammonia in, that just seems backwards to me, seeing as we try to keep the ammonia levels down once the tank is thriving. Actually I had pretty good luck with my other Puffer tank and it's much smaller, so maybe this one won't be a problem afterall. I'm just a litle paranoid now that I have my SAP's because I've been wanting that type of Puffer for a while and only just found a LFS that has them.
Continued thanks for everyone who's given me advice and suggestions. One thing I've learned is how important water changes are, and I am doing them dutifully.

What do you think fish urine is? All we are doing by adding sammonia is simulating a full bioload of fish in the tank, so enough ammonia/nitrite-eating bacteria has developed. Eventually there will be enough of that to eat the ammonia/nitrite, so they test 0, even after adding ammonia. By just adding gravel from an established tank, you are adding the correct type of bacteria but letting it starve, by not adding ammonia & it dies.

i think you're on the right track with the 'old' gravel and 3 tetras. that should definitely get the system going. to cycle my 60g FW i used 3 Tiger barbs that I got a deal on from my LFS (3 for $4.99) and those aggressive creatures are still alive and ravenous as ever!!

Thanks Matt, if you were me, when would you add the two SAP's to this new tank? I don't want to wait too long, but I don't want to add them before the tank is ready either. What do you think about those products that say you can add fish sooner if you use them? Do they work? I'm not a very patient person I guess and right now, the SAP's are in my large tank with all the other fish and I can't really see them that well, I want to get them in this new tank where I can see them better. This fishkeeping is addictive. I keep wanting to get more tanks, but running out of the space to have them in!

Bio spira is the only one that actually works.

...actually they have a product under another name over there. hold on.

EDIT:
I can't find the name of that other product. does anybody know it?

After you have put the fish and old gravel into the tank, I would probably wait another 4 weeks to play it safe.

It took approximately 7 weeks for my 29g tank to cycle with 2 black molly's and otherwise all new material.

I used BioSpira (old version that HAD to be kept refrigerated to kept beneficial bateria alive), old gravel and the same Molly's to cycle my 60g tank. The cycling process took approximately 5 weeks. I am not sure if the BioSpira helped the process since this tank is so much larger.

If nothing else, I would frequently check the water parameters (amonia, nitrite, nitrate) every few days since those values will ultimately tell you when the tank is fully cycled.