The Puffer Forum

Hi people, Puffer noob here. my LFS has a tank of Figure 8 Puffers, and I have just set up a 110 gallon freshwater tank up, water has been cycling for about a month. It will be heavily planted.

Can I keep Figure 8 Puffers in it? How many? And can someone direct me to a link for setting up a snail breeding tank?

Thanks!

Only if you have extremely hard water.

OK, I do have extremely hard water (On a well, very high calcium, shower heads last about a year).

Is there some water tests I can run to see if the puffers would do well?

F8s need brackish water, but that is easy to do.

Here is info on f8
library/puffers-in-focus/fig8/

Here is info on snail breeding
library/feeding/basic-snail-breeding/


You can do 1 f8 per 15 gallons with no other fish

Thanks for the links!

Not so easy on your plants though. I suggest setting up a species tank for them.

I was planning on keeping the puffers exclusively, the plants would be hardy, simple plants.

Can you recommend any equipment that you use to measure the various aspects of your water?

API liquid test kits & hydrometer/refractometer.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19348

Brackish water plants
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14694

Brackish water mixing, with equipment list, such as a hydrometer
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19348

Other important equipment, liqiud test kits for ammonia, nitrite nitrate

Others will chime in on other important equipment

Pufferpunk wrote:
Only if you have extremely hard water.

So you're sayong that if its not in brackish it needs to be really high ph wise as in 8 and then some? Besides aragonite sand, what else would you use besides the obvious rocks to keep it up? Is their solvents you can put in water?

It is not advisable to mess with your water using chemicals, it creates a highly unstable tank which could easily crash. Arognite etc will help whilst keeping stability. Stable water is the most important thing after all.

I have problems with folks saying to avoid "chemicals". All life on this planet is chemically based. Your body, and any pet fish's body is made up of chemicals. Therefore the only possible life form without chemicals would be non-physical - that is, a ghost. I have never seen or kept a non-physical ghost, so I cannot offer any suggestions there.

What folks are trying to say is that you cannot change water's components without knowing what you are doing, and having the test equipment to measure what what you have and what you are changing. Many LFS will try to sell you "quick fixes" such as commercial buffers, etc. Those enrich the store that sells them and do little or nothing positive for your fish or their water.

If you want to keep light brackish water puffers in the tap water you have, first you need to test the water you have. You need to age it at lest 24 hours and then test the pH, GH, KH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate, plus the specific gravity at room temperature to 75-80F. Post back with that data and folks here can tell you what would need to be changed for any particulat fish to be kept in that water. Your local water utility may be able to provide you with much of that data, but you will need your own liquid test kits for checking the water periodically.

HTH

I apologise rtr, quick fixes is what I was meaning. My brain is very unscientific if that makes sense.