The Puffer Forum

thats right my 4x2x2 smashed last night, it wasnt even filled yet, i had it for a max of 2 weeks.
it was sitting on the floor in my spare room waiting to be set up and as my room mate was looking for something
he knocked over a bench with tools on it and they fell on and into my brand new tank and completely smashed
one side the bottom, 3 lids, and the front cracked. cant be repaired its in 2 peices.

so my room mate gave me a replacement that had been sitting at his mums for the time being
46inch x 16inch x 17inch its acctually about 20 inch high but im going to fill it to 17inch
around 56g, before anybody says anything... i know he needs a 100g+
so room mate will eventually be replacing my tank but it'll take a while cos he's still a 1st year apprentice

i was just wondering how long will it take for my milk-spotted puffer to outgrow this tank
will he be stunted by this tank size eventually or would he just be living uncomfortably?
ive had him for about 4 months now and hes only grown to about 8cm with tail
ive acctually heard that most full grown chelonodon patocas only reach about 15-20cm
in the aquarium, whereas others can reach up to 38cm if in the ocean

Stunting can occur quickly. Keep up with the water changes or do larger water changes and that should help.
There were a couple of write ups about stunting in the forum. Just do a search and they should pop up. Also I think there's an article in the library that may help.

oh that blows! Is there an Australian equivalent to craigslist you could check out?

Yeouch. Your main problem will be keeping the water quality good, so you're in for lots of water changes (plan for a lot of salt expense). If it is an option, maybe you can figure out a way to set up a makeshift sump to add on to the water volume at least.

Make sure you really watch your nitrates.. if they start going up faster than you can reduce them with once or twice a week water changes you've reached the critical level and he's going to need a bigger tank or you risk some permanent stunting and health issues (stunting will actually lead to internal organ damage, so its not a good thing).

Once he starts really growing, you'll have the issue of him not having enough turning room, but I honestly think you'll run into water quality issues long before then.

there wont be anyproblems with turning room, at least not for a fair while, he's only like 8 cm with tail
and even when hes fully grown i dont beleive he'll get longer the width of the tank.
i'm mainly worried about the bio-load when he's larger.
tho in 3-4 months i will have a new tank

I think at 8cm, you'll be ok for 3-4 months. Just do as above. You're lucky it was smashed by someone willing to replace it & you lost nothing but glass. There was a guy at my reef forum who had a 330g tank full of very $$$ corals & while he was on vacation, his sister was watching the tank. Her 6 year old nephew threw a metal dart at the tank & it must have his just the right spot, because the entire front pannel shattered & by the time he got hiome, he lost everything. He never asked her to replace any of it.

Wow. That's awful. Good luck getting everything back on track. And that's so, so lucky that the tank was empty.

yeah i was extremely lucky it wasnt filled and that i got a good enough mate thats happy to replace it

Wow, that would be a major disaster.. 300 gallons and all the corals.

The rule of thumb for fish length vs width of the tank is you always want the tank to be at least 1.5x the length of the fish. Anything less than that causes the fish to spend too much time bending their body and leads to spinal disfigurment. So if your puffer is expected to grow to 10", make sure the tank is at least 15" front to back. If the puffer should grow to 18", make sure the tank is at least 27" front to back and so on.

Pufferpunk wrote:I think at 8cm, you'll be ok for 3-4 months. Just do as above. You're lucky it was smashed by someone willing to replace it & you lost nothing but glass. There was a guy at my reef forum who had a 330g tank full of very $$$ corals & while he was on vacation, his sister was watching the tank. Her 6 year old nephew threw a metal dart at the tank & it must have his just the right spot, because the entire front pannel shattered & by the time he got hiome, he lost everything. He never asked her to replace any of it.

Moral of the story - Don't let kids anywhere near your tanks unless you are there too. And even then... Haha.

Sorry about your tank bud.