The Puffer Forum

we were at the lfs today and saw a beautiful porcupine puffer

how hard are they to keep?
can you have a FOWLR set up?
do they need the RO water/skimmer/live rock combo to survive best?

lesleyanndunn wrote:we were at the lfs today and saw a beautiful porcupine puffer

how hard are they to keep?
can you have a FOWLR set up?
do they need the RO water/skimmer/live rock combo to survive best?

Check out the pufferpedia in the Learn tab up top for lots of GREAT information. It's where I go for lots of studying I need

ummm PORK!!!

yes they need full marine FOWLR, RO don't know about, skimmer certainly!

i wouldnt use anything but ro for my marine tanks. Unless you want questionable water conditions.

jdak wrote:i wouldnt use anything but ro for my marine tanks. Unless you want questionable water conditions.

Unless there is something wrong with your water from the tap you don't necessarily need RO water. A good regular schedule of water chances will usually take care of any questionable water conditions.

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trekenk wrote:

jdak wrote:i wouldnt use anything but ro for my marine tanks. Unless you want questionable water conditions.

Unless there is something wrong with your water from the tap you don't necessarily need RO water. A good regular schedule of water chances will usually take care of any questionable water conditions.

Their are many contaminants found in tap water. With constant evaporation, these build up and you could never dilute them because you are constantly adding more with every water change. Good luck with tap water.

What if you live by the sea and just go down with a couple gallon jugs?

jdak wrote:Their are many contaminants found in tap water. constant With evaporation, these build up and you could never dilute them because you are constantly adding more with every water change. Good luck with tap water.

Do it my way or you will FAIL! (Sorry. It just sounded that way to me) Anywho, I have several family members with fowlr and or marine/reef tanks that exclusively use well water and city water. Their tanks have been up and running for years with no issues.

JoseDepacos wrote:

jdak wrote:Their are many contaminants found in tap water. constant With evaporation, these build up and you could never dilute them because you are constantly adding more with every water change. Good luck with tap water.

Do it my way or you will FAIL! (Sorry. It just sounded that way to me) Anywho, I have several family members with fowlr and or marine/reef tanks that exclusively use well water and city water. Their tanks have been up and running for years with no issues.

Depending on how clean your tap water is you can get away with it. So in your case, a proc tank, if you have decent water to start you should be fine. For tanks with more sensitive corals/inverts/fish its not going to be enough to ensure the health of the creatures and control algae. In the above mentioned case, sure people can do it, but is it the best way? No. The way I look at it, a RO/DI is a SMALL cost compared to the head aches of not doing it and a step to insure the much larger cost of live stock.

A properly maintained RO/DI will give you best results.

LFS bought water or getting filtered drinking water are the next best options.

mrgreen wrote:What if you live by the sea and just go down with a couple gallon jugs?

Coastal water is more prone to have unknown contaminants and probably higher nutrients due to rain run off. You would be better off useing untested tap water. Natural Saltwater sold at LFSs has been tested, filtered and most of the time its not even natural, just the stores own mix of RO/DI and salt mix.

I was thinking about on the southern tip of vanvouver island- up in the hills there are bays- really neat. As kids, we'd collect crabs from under rocks and look at star fish. It was literally down the driveway and across the street.

Mek0ng wrote:
A properly maintained RO/DI will give you best results.

In a perfect world yes I do agree RO water would be the best but...... being in the aquarium maintenance business most of my customer whether they are a business or home don't want to invest in a RO system. We are still in most cases able to maintain a healthy environment, ( were not talking reef tanks here).

I used to worry a lot about the idea of using natural ocean water.. but the largest closed system(meaning, not wired directly to the ocean) coral reef tank in the western hemisphere uses no mixes at all... just sea water right from the Long Island sound(near where I grew up) and it's just fine, and I would NOT have thought to trust that water.

JoseDepacos wrote:Do it my way or you will FAIL! (Sorry. It just sounded that way to me) Anywho, I have several family members with fowlr and or marine/reef tanks that exclusively use well water and city water. Their tanks have been up and running for years with no issues.

Sorry, i'm for fish health. I've never been in a marine forum where people argue that tap water is fine. It's just unheard of to me. Years before i had an RO, i bought my water from the grocery. I thought it was standard practice. BTW, my tap water reads about 600ppm. Whats yours? Or have you neglected to look at that as well. (Sorry. I can get smart too.)

I did have an RO unit plumbed into my main water supply for a marine tank a couple of yrs ago.
We closed the tank down last yr and sold everything off.
But still love looking at the marine section in the lfs.
Knew that prob did the full set up again for even just one fish in a marine set up
Maybe in a few yrs