The Puffer Forum

After a few full water changes and some stress about odd "spiderweb floaters", the 29 gallon is finally ready. Surprisingly, he showed almost no stress moving from one tank to another. (But when I clean his aquarium, he freaks out. Go figure.)

The live plants had to be removed. Despite what the Petland employee said, they were not high end brackish water friendly and started showing signs of dieing the morning after they were planted.

So that will come later.

But here are some pictures of his first moments enjoying the massive amount of space. Enjoy.

Lol, what a cutie! Mangrove can live in saltwater, but I don't believe anything else can. You're lucky if that PetSmart employer didn't just sell you terrestrial plants on top of the lie of a supposed "high end brackish" plants.

Seagrass is SW safe, but eats light and grow too dense for puffers. Not really suited to hobby tanks at all - it is too big and too hungry.

Mangroves are emerse, not submeged growth - other than their stem/trunk, so do not provide much decor.

Macroalgae provide the only likely "plant" material for SW.

ohhh I have just been doing some research on sea grasses... as RTR stated most are not suited for a hobby tank. Most require a 6"+ sand bed made of VERY fine particles.

Halodule and H. beaudettei could be used but they are apparently quite rare in the hobby.

With Macro algae you have to be careful. With some, if the alga runs out of nutrients to will go into "asexual" reproduction mode. All that nasty stuff that it has been taking out of the water will be belched out and you have a tank crash. Ammonia spikes, nitrates and phosphates go through the roof, and the plant essentially dies producing thousands if not millions of spores. In the ocean this is not a problem, but in a confined space it is a time bomb.

Some of those macro algae and grasses aren't much to look at either!
But regarding the plants PetSmart and Petco sell, look them up online to make sure they are true aquatic and not just emerse/terrestrial plants. Those would be fine in a terrarium, but will not live submerged.

They were submerged at the store, but I imagine it was freshwater.

I guess that means I'll just wait until he's moved up to full marine to really work on other things. I do want him to be a little bit bigger before I do that though. Thanks for the warning about macro algae, too.

http://reefcleaners.org/
Has a lot of info on macro algae .They are based here in Fl !

Several of the macroalgae types/species are only "safe" with 24/7 lighting in a refugium, and are probably best avoided. These days are multiple okay forms in the trade, but I doubt seriously they will ever be seen in a chain. They are likely only to be found in a good reef-only store.

I have no experience with mail order macroalage.

Fwoom wrote:some stress about odd "spiderweb floaters"

anyone know what causes those? every so often id get it in my 20g after cleaning... you are talking about what looks like invisible strings connecting plants, right?

hadla wrote:

Fwoom wrote:some stress about odd "spiderweb floaters"

anyone know what causes those? every so often id get it in my 20g after cleaning... you are talking about what looks like invisible strings connecting plants, right?

I posted pictures of what I had here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=27144
It took 2 full water changes to completely get rid of it and it had to come from either the bottled water I used, the aragonite, or the aquarium.

chuckfriedrice wrote:http://reefcleaners.org/
Has a lot of info on macro algae .They are based here in Fl !

I really like some of what they have. Have you ever ordered from them before? The chitons look really neat.

RTR wrote:Several of the macroalgae types/species are only "safe" with 24/7 lighting in a refugium, and are probably best avoided. These days are multiple okay forms in the trade, but I doubt seriously they will ever be seen in a chain. They are likely only to be found in a good reef-only store.

I have no experience with mail order macroalage.

I have a 15 gallon just sitting out, so I might as well try experimenting with it there. I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable enough to put it into my other aquarium, but I'm sure my older aquarium will end up housing something.

Ive ordered from reef cleaners , but like I said there here in fl so I got my order the very next day ! Just be research the macros that you want cuz some pollute the water when trimmed or when they go asexual they pollute . They have new stuff every week to. I usually check 1 or 2xs a week to see what they have !

I definitely foresee trying them out. On a side note, your porcupine puffer is SO adorable. I'd love to get one, but I don't have nearly enough space for a large aquarium in my apartment. Someday...

thats interesting... i think it might only happen when you dont have any filters running or not enough filtration because it only happened when i was converting my 20g into brackish and had a small tetra whisper filter in it.(kinda like this one: http://www.tetra-fish.com/sites/tetrafi ... 76&cid=280)

The hazardous macroalghae are blocked by 24/7 lighting, but there are much better choices available which have few or no risks.

Chaetomorpha is widely available and is quite safe. It hosts beneficial 'pods and can be harvested by removing 25-50% of the mass periodically to export nutrients.

http://www.reefland.com/articles/rho/be ... e-aquarium

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-01/sl/index.php

http://www.twolittlefishies.com/images/ ... manual.pdf