The Puffer Forum

I'm toying with the idea of getting a different substrate for the tank rebuild. We've had the fairly small gravel (pea-sized) in there recently.

What's the current thinking on substrate for puffers?

My personal opinion is any substrate will do for puffers. Is really depends on what you going for inside your tank. Are you getting LIVE plants?If so i suggest flourite or eco complete which is benefacial for any plants. What kind of puffer you have?If is lurkers..using sand would be better because they like to burrow.Is it a brackish tank? If it is that will limit your choice of plants then choice any type of substrates.

I have sand in my puffer tanks.

I see this is in the BW puffer section. If that's the case, then your choices are aragonite sand & crushed coral to keep the ph steady, around 8.

I concur with Pufferpunk on that one. Unless you have hard water with a naturally high pH, you're best off to get one of the two substrates mentioned. If you need colour, you can always mix in some small coloured gravel into the mix.

I love the combo aragonite sand/tufa rocks to aquascape a brackish tank.

No worries on the pH or the hardness. Our tap water is essentially liquid rock -- the hardness test kits I tried overflowed the test tube before I got done. Starting pH is in the 7.6-7.8 range; as soon as the salt goes in it, that goes up to 8.2 or so. The alkalinity is also pretty high.

No plans for live plants; the tank hasn't got the lighting for it. Also no plans for any "burrowing" fish. This is the only tank we can have in the house (we rent), so we want active swimmers.

Then you're open to about anything.

Given that, is there an advantage to non-aragonite sand vs. small gravel? Or to crushed coral vs. either of those?

(Apologies for asking such newbie questions, but it feels like forever since I looked into this kind of thing, and my forum search-fu is failing me tonight.)

i was under the impression that crushed coral is not the best substrate becuase it tends to collect detrius.

Yeah, sand doesn't allow for detritus to collect under it, but does promote anaerobic pockets to build if its too dense (thicker than 1 to 1.5 inches). Crushed coral and gravel allow more detritus to go beneath, but generally don't build up anaerobic pockets.

So really, if pH and alkalinity aren't an issue, just pick whichever one you prefer the look of.

CC is ccleaned with a gravel cleaner, just like gravel. It is a bad substrate for reef tanks though, there there is much more LR over it, where you can't thoroughly clean under it.

I'm vaguely remembering discussions from years back about issues with ordinary quartz-based sand or play sand. A lot of the anti-play-sand posts at the time seemed, well, a bit alarmist. Given that this isn't going to be going reef any time soon, are there specific reasons to avoid play sand?

If so, are there issues with "reptile sand", which is apparently more calcium-based? The only aragonite-based sand I've seen so far is that so-called "live" sand, which seems OMG expensive when (a) I can't imagine how the bacteria stay alive without food for an extended period of time, and (b) they'd die off anyhow in the lower-salinity water they'd be in here.

Many reefers use play sand. Your only issue with sand is it will need to be stirred weekly if over 1" deep, to avoid anerobic pocxkets from forming.

You should be able to find bags of aragonite sand. In my opinion, the live sand is a joke, and isn't worth the cost.

Here's the stuff you'd find at PetSmart: http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.j ... Id=2753226
There's also similar stuff at Big Al's: http://www.bigalsonline.ca/BigAlsCA/ctl ... elect30lbs

Just go with play sand unless you specifically need aragonite.