The Puffer Forum

As some of you guys know, I had 2 GSPs in my 29 gallon tank, brackish. One passed away due to stress and subsequent illness (Georgia), and the other one (Lenny), decided the world wasn't worth living in without his friend and stopped eating. I miss em still... But on to greener pastures. I decided to finally ( after 2 years FW experience, and I do say so myself, a solid grasp on it ) try a Marine tank. For the first 2 weeks after I made the water saline, I "fed" the tank food and let it run, testing ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate to get a feel for where I was at. Then I got some pure ammonia liquid ( It took days to find, if you want some, Ace is the place, lol ). After things were more stable, but not quite fully cycled I will admit, I did a big water change and added a Blue Damsel, female I think. At that point I strove to keep ammonia down to what she was producing and give the nitrifying bacteria time to break down the nitrite. Nitrates were climbing and nitrite was diminishing. Last night I installed a 20g Shark refugium. It only holds about 8g of water. I took my HoB filter off and inserted the media in the fuge along with a nice new filter pad I made, 2 layers of cloth with a nice bed of carbon. I was planning ahead for the fuge, so I "seeded" some bio balls in the current beforehand, and added about 30 new ones into the "rain chamber", as I call it. I moved the heater into the refugium as well, it's right next to my sump, a Rio 2500HP. On the return to the 29, I spliced in a flow control valve, that I currently have at full throttle. I also have a Red Sea Venturi protein skimmer, it's hanging on the back where it will be running but I'm not going to skim until I'm fully cycled up, besides, I need a powerhead still. So far everything is going very well, I'm keeping pollutants down to a level that even "regular" (not puffers) marine fish should be able to deal with, and I can tell the system is establishing. I have 5 pounds or so of live-ish rock (its establishing too, it came from my LFS's sump) and lots of cool coral skeletons to provide hiding places and surface area for bacteria. I'm using a substrate comprised of sand from the beach I live by, and Aragonite/crushed shell. The sand is grey and the Aragonite/shell is all white. Also occupying the tank is, believe it or not, a ghost shrimp! He has been in there at 0.020 for almost a month, something I didn't think they could do!
If anyone has any tips or questions pls post, I will try and get pics up soon. One more thing, if your going to regale me with criticisms of using a Damsel to help cycle my tank, please consider the steps I have taken (like cycling for 3 weeks prior) to ensure her safety and comfort before you "light me up". Cheers guys!

I know you've gotten a good handle on FW but SW is a totally different ball of wax. I wish you had dome a bit more research before attempting this. It is quite simple to cycle a SW tank without fish or ammonia. SW tanks are cycled with live rock--nothing else needed.

Agreed, would have saved a lot of time and unnecessary steps.

Aaaah. Ill admit I had no idea live rock could do that. The research I did gave me the impression the ammonia would work at any specific gravity. I guess I didn't delve deep enough. At least this one is a learning experience that won't kill anything. Thanks tank gurus!

What do you plan on keeping in there?

Buy some aragonite sand, make an inch or 2, but no more, of a bed. If you want to, you can get some plastic egg crate to place on the bottom before adding the sand, this will help keep the live rock from slipping out of place.

Add mixed saltwater to appropriate salinity for species wanted, 1.020 - 1.025

Buy live rock according to the pound per gallon, or at least as much as you can afford.

Make charming live rock caves and swim arounds and throughs.

Depending on your tank, and residents, the protein skimmer powerhead *may* provide enough flow, but circulation pumps are usually needed in addition.

I'm probably over simplifying it, but that's about it for bare minimum FOWLR. Depending on the quality of your liverock, and whether or not it has been cured, you can have a cycled tank in either a manner or hours, or maybe a week or two. I'm not sure because I've never cured live rock, I think it might take a few weeks.

I allready have the aragonite and sand mix substrate, but I do plan on getting more live rock. I think I will alsoo have substrate and rock in the fuge. PP, I'm not sure what I will stock yet, maybe a fifi orangetail and a small clown. Or the puff and a goby. I want some hermit crabs and an abundance of empty shells on the bottom. If I wanted marine plants would I have to do Co2 injection? And can I keep any fish in the fuge? Or just inverts? I'm pretty sure I want to cultivate amphipods down there, any omnivores I get are likely to snack on them I believe. Also, if I chose the right kind of star or urchin, would it be compatibe with the animals I'm thinking of stocking with? Are fijis reef safe? I might try some corals once the system establishes. And in response to the question of current, the return from the fuge allready provides a massive waterflow, across the back and eddying to the front in a circular current. Since implementing this, the damsel is super active, more vibrantly coloured, and shows off her fin spines when gaurding her territory, for now its awesome and I'm sure the addition of a powerhead will only help. Thanks all!

Purifire wrote: Or the puff and a goby.

I don't really recommend that. The goby would most likely be picked at by the puffer.

29g would be the bare minimum for a toby.

U guys agree that I COULD keep a Toby in there? I run a clean tank and I can keep changing the decor....

I wouldn't keep a toby and a damsel together personally, and not in that size of tank. Damsels have aa bad reputation of being too aggresive for any tankmates. A 29 gallon should be OK for a toby all by himself, but you may find him getting restless as time passes and he gets larger.

Here we go!

This is my setup.



And thats a closeup of the Fuge.

Heres a closeup of my substrate and some decor.

Last night I left a siphon unattended when I got distracted and overflowed gallons into the rug...
So after my impromptu WC of about 20% I checked the levels... 0ppm Ammonia, 0ppm No2, 0ppm No3. SWEET!
Also seeing more and more of that coraline algae growing on my skeletons. On another note, I'm gonna have to post a pic of my base rock and see if you guys can tell me whether or not it's the man-made stuff.
Oh yeah... another question, as you can see in the pics, I have my heater in the Fuge now, didn't want it mucking up my asthetics. Is that an OK way to go, or inefficient?

A lot of people put their heaters in the sumps like that so not to have extra stuff in the tank