The Puffer Forum

Hello, I have a 55 gallon Green Spotted Puffer tank with some live rock, a very large powerhead, an AC70 filter. It is currently getting weekly partial water changes. However, due to weekly water changes, the water is not evaporating properly in that time period, so I am unable to add freshwater to lower the salinity. His salinity is 1.026 which I know is quite high for a Green Spotted Puffer tank. My mother is the one that does the water changes and was curious as to whether she could do it every *other* week or not. (Certainly not ideal, I know)

Any advice is helpful. Thank you

how many pounds of live rock?

Your water changes could be done monthly. The cleaning after feeding is still daily. Top off should be distilled or RO/DI water.

About 15 LBS of live rock at present, will be adding more soon.

I also have a 55 gallon tank with one Figure 8 Puffer, the puffer is about 2.5 inches long, two filters for a combined amount of 420 GPH filtration, crushed coral substrate to help buffer the PH. Salinity is 1.008, my mother was also curious if this tank could also be done with a water change once every two weeks instead.

Aquarist with a F8 puffer you can not go with live rock or salt water filteration so water changes once a week are in order. That SG of 1.008 is just a bit to high, I believe 1.005 is better.

Aquarist wrote:About 15 LBS of live rock at present, will be adding more soon.

Aquarist for the proper salt water filteration and monthly water changes you going to need 1 1/2 - 2 lbs of live rock pre gallon ( 80 - 110 lbs). Do you have any other rock in there you are trying to seed?

the low SG and lack of live rock in the F8 tank will require more water changes than a full marine tank.

For the F8's when the nitrates hit 20 ppm do a water change and gravel vac. From there you will get into a rhythm. The math is simple. 20 ppm at a 50% water change = 10 ppm. If it doesn't hit 20 ppm for a week you are good to extend that a bit. Keep testing and you will learn the balance.

For the SW tank, it is similar BUT (and that is a big BUT) the detritus produced by the puffer can be a good thing.

Here is all lies in your sand bed. 3 kinds of beds:
Shallow coarse beds
Deep coarse beds
Deep fine beds

The first requires regular maintenance as any aquarium.
The second is really for special situations (burrowers and diggers)
The third will complete the nitrogen cycle. They are called Deep Sand Beds and the substrate should be quite fine (sand blasting sand). The previous 2 will not have this attribute.

Having said that, a DSB takes time to set up and culture... once you have about 80 lbs of live rock that can help seed the bed, you're probably looking at a year or more before it matures.

Aquarist wrote:My mother is the one that does the water changes and was curious as to whether she could do it every *other* week or not. (Certainly not ideal, I know)

Any advice is helpful. Thank you

You have a very nice mother. I wish my wife would help with water changes, lol. She tolerates my hobby more than embracing it.

You are wasting $alt on your marine tank by keeping the SG that high (unless you're keeping corals in there). 1.020 is fine.