The Puffer Forum

hi!

i just bought my first puffer today, a Canthigaster papua! i like it so much i will get another one tomorrow, Canthigaster valantini!! im loving these puffers

as im sure you all do as well

hi! what tank have you got???

hello, i have a 2ft cube reef tank with the papua in it. also a 2ft FOWLR tank that the valenti will go into.

i have 6 freshwater tanks too but freshwater puffers are hard to find in australia

here is a photo of my 2ft reef. its still a young reef and i have alot of fragging to do, then alot of waiting for it all to grow !

i have no photo of the FOWLR tank as its pretty ugly!! i dont think the puffer will mind tho!

I've never had any luck keeping a puffer in a reef.

thanks!

its really just alot of liverock with morphs and zoas, i used the term reef loosely

well i have some problems with the puffer in the reef tank ! i dont really care if he destroys the place, but with the high flow, lots of liverock its hard to get the food to him. he also seems only interested in food if it floats past his nose...

the other problem is just how messy they are!! i had oscars so i thought i knew what a messy eater was! WRONG... lol... the puffers seem to just chew and spit the food out several times so they eat about 10% of the food and 90% goes allover the floor. this is problematic with heaps of liverock and a live sand bed...

well its all a learning curve i suppose, i think i will have to setup some kind of tank with bare floor and more of a 'stacked' liverock pillars effect or something...

this is not how i pictured things to be... i will have to look at changing my tanks around to make it all better somehow...

Can you not turn the current off at feeding time? That's what we do. Prevents the food and waste from filling the filter and the entire tank. With time they seem to pick up a lot of their mess too.

Another reason puffers are not the best fish for reef tanks, since corals need nitrate levels as close to 0 as possible. I'd suggest a CUC for the excess food but the puffer would eventually eat them.

probably cant tell from the pics, but the liverock was intorduced gradually and built up into a complex maze of caves and tunnels, which makes it a bit hard cos the food just dissapears into the abyss. i have a damsel in there as well, which just nails the food. but the papuan is kinda shy and slow to eat. he/she seems to be improving a bit tho.

luckily its not a fully blown reef with SPS and such tho, just zoas and mushies. from what i gather they can both handle a bit of nitrate. might just be mushies soon, cos i have an outbreak of ZOA POX! which is hitting my zoos pretty hard.

i have two 90G tanks but im using them for freshwater right now... i will probably turn one into a FOWLR tank, shut down my small FOWLR tank and rebuild the reef. right now i kinda have them full of cichlids so it might take a bit to arrange. but i guess its all ok for now, im going to add more CUC even tho they might get eaten...

Try this for zoapox: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13501
If you can take them out & dose separately, that would best but you need a skimmer for sure, at dosing as high as 100ppm (which is where you need to be at for pox). Your main system should be able to handle that though, if you don't have the proper QT, but you still should boos that dosing with every other day dipping in Furan 2. Raise the ppm of VC slowly, it should take about a week to get to 100ppm.

very interesting read thanks

i have no skimmer on the tank, so can i try vitamin C at a lower concentration?

unfortunately in australia furan is illegal i have been trying freshwater dips in iodine, it might just finish off the poor zoas but then again it might just work?

Iodine won't kill pox. You need a skimmer in your main tank. Now would be a good time.

a skimmer is handy for sure, but this tank is going to have to manage without one.

Looks like those zoas are a loss then.

hmm that sux. poor little guys does anyone know what causes the zoa pox?