The Puffer Forum

Here are some pictures of my 55. The centerpiece of the tank is Marlowe the SAP. He was added this past Sunday after 25 days in quarantine. There are 5 danios; 2 pearl and 3 roseus. There are also 2 upside down catfish. Anyway, here are some pictures.

I really like the way you set that up with the wood and rock, but don't you need a lot more plants for a SAP? I always thought they needed a heavily planted tank, so my 50g has like 20 aponogeton's in it! Plus some Java ferns, java moss, anacharis, onion plant, dwarf lilies, and some other plants I don't know the name of...

-Rob

I wanted to start a planted for my freshwater tank. Can you just have plain sand to anchor those plants alone or do you have special substrate?

For a substrate in my 50g tank I have river rocks which are about golfball size. Of course, I use plants that have very low fertilizer and light requirements... For most of the plants I can just wedge them between some rocks, and the roots grow under the rocks and anchor them in, but for some of the smaller ones with less developed roots, I wrap one of those lead plant holders around them to help keep them in place (so, if the rocks shift, they don't go floating away). Really, the only trouble I ever have is when a plant reproduces and the baby plants keep floating around, or when I move stuff around, then have to re-bury the roots. Lately, I've taken to pulling the baby plants out of the tank, and putting them in a different tank to mature, but that's because I had a few get chewed up by my powerhead. I prefer to let them find their own resting spot in the tank (more natural aquascaping than I could ever do!), but I don't like to risk them dying.

...and thus end my rambling comments about my own tank!

-Rob

Alright, no special substrate needed for low maitenance aquarium plants. I'll have a little project for this weekend. Oh by the way this particular set up has inspired me. Very nice.

Looks nice, but Marlowe would be happier with a few more of his own kind - they do best in little groups. Are you able to add some more - even if it means sacrificing some of the other fish? I appreciate it wouldn't then be a "community" tank but what could be nicer than a "community" of SAPs?!!

I just use sand in my tanks and the plants do well. Lighting for this tank is a 36 inch T5 strip lite with one 6700k bulb and one colormax bulb, nothing fancy. I use Flourish as a supplement. I'm not ready to make the leap into CO2 systems. The tank was planted last Saturday, so I'm going to give the vals time to propagate and grow before I start adding more plants. The driftwood is new and I'm impatiently waiting for it to start leaching tannis. I think the roseus danios will look stunning in blackwater, but I'm beginning to think I will have to buy the extract.

Impatiently waiting for it to leach tannins? huh... I didn't know that was something you wanted to happen. I've had a couple of pieces of oak in my tank for a long time (hurricane debris). They use to give my water a very slight brownish coloring... Took almost 2 years for them to stop changing my water color! Now I have a few small Java ferns grown on each piece... I keep waiting for the java moss to latch on to them and grow too, but it ain't happened yet.

-Rob

bigfatfish wrote:Looks nice, but Marlowe would be happier with a few more of his own kind - they do best in little groups. Are you able to add some more - even if it means sacrificing some of the other fish? I appreciate it wouldn't then be a "community" tank but what could be nicer than a "community" of SAPs?!!

Oh yes, my plan was/is to get 2-3 more SAPs. But it may take a while for me to find some. Last weekend I went to the LFS where I got Marlowe from and checked to see if the had gotten any more SAPs in. In the brackish water section I came across a dead scat floating in its tank with about a half an inch "layer" of slime encasing its entire body. I then looked in the F8/GSP tank and found several puffers with deep bite marks. The worst was a GSP who had numerous punctures on the head. In the next tank there was a male and female irrubesco huddled in an upper corner of the tank and the head of puffer, I wasn't able to tell what kind it may have been, in the sand. The puffer hadn't buried the rest of itself in the sand, it had been decapitated. I will not go back to that store. Since that was the only place I've come across SAPs it may take me a while to find some. I don't want to order one because I want to inspect it myself. Marlowe seems quite content for now. He's a speed demon and quite the show off.

Tannis in the water is a preference thing. I never thought I would like the look of it, but then I add a piece of new mopani driftwood to my nano-fish tank and the tannis made it absolutely beautiful. I have Malaysian driftwood in the 55 and I think that it takes longer for the tannis to leach out of that type of wood.

Maybe if you increased the lighting a little the java moss will take off for you. I have a piece of driftwood where I thought I had cleaned off all the Java moss. I didn't realize until after I put it back in the tank that I had missed a couple strands, six months later the top side of the driftwood has a carpet of java moss on it.

Yeah, I'm just too cheap to go out and buy a new light setup for my 50g. It runs off one rinky dink bulb, and that's why I chose the plants I have. My Java moss is growing well in a few spots, but not on the wood... I recently had some black beard algae growing on one piece, but no java moss!

-Rob

Well, black beard algae is an accomplishment of sorts, it can be persistent and long lived. You know, with the plants you currently have, you could do a very nice low end brackish set up. I'm not entirely sure about the dwarf lilies, but everything else you listed does well in brackish water.

I've debated turning my 30 gallon tank into a brackish, or full marine tank for a single GSP, but I'm gonna keep the 50g as fresh. All my fish in it are true fresh water fish, anyhow... I'm also considering taking my shrimp out of my 5gallon tank, and tossing them into the 30g to make it a shrimp breeder tank. I dunno... I kinda like the thought of a bunch of neon tetras in the 30g tank, too. Basically, I've just hijacked this thread to discuss my own tanks!

-Rob

robert_hollis wrote:Basically, I've just hijacked this thread to discuss my own tanks!

I don't mind. Too many ideas and not enough tanks, I know the feeling.

robert_hollis wrote: Now I have a few small Java ferns grown on each piece... I keep waiting for the java moss to latch on to them and grow too, but it ain't happened yet.-Rob

A) if you tie it down with some fishing line it will do the trick, but it has to be near the roots and not too tightly.
B) use some cooking twine, wrap around the roots but NOT TIGHTLY and forget about it. The plants will anchor and the twine will eventually disolve.

Java moss doesn't grow that quickly ... not like hogwort.. be patient