The Puffer Forum

Hi there, was hoping for a little advice. I currently have african cichilids in my tank and a looking to change the tank over to keeping fresh or brackish water puffers instead. Was just wondering whether I could use the gravel from my current tank or whether puffers are best with a sand bottom. My tank already has a low salt content as that is the best for the cichilids so am trying towork out what I can keep and what I need to change.
Many thanks.

What puffer species are you considering? Will you be rehoming all the cichlids? Tank size?

Sorry, should have really put that in. All the cichilids will be rehomed before any puffers go in. Tank is 20 gallons, was thinking either a figure 8 puffer or GSP.

A 20g would make a good home for a f8, unfortunately way too small for a gsp. You can keep the gravel if you wish as f8 puffers don't tend to bury. The good news is you can add your puffer to the tank the same day you remove your cichlids to maintain the cycle, you can then slowly raise the salinity by no more than 0.002 per week until the needs of the f8 are met (1.003-1.005). If you shoot for 1.004 it allows you to stay in the recommended range if you allow for a little evaporation. Welcome to the forum

I highly suggest using aragonite sand, to buffer the water at a stable pH of 8 & keep it nice & hard, unless you already have a hard water source.
library/puffers-in-focus/fig8/

As long as you have an established filter & move the cichlids out & the single puffer in the same day, your tank will be good to go, even after changing out the substrate.

+1 to Puferpunk's comment on aragonite sand. For some reason, the resulting higher and stable pH seems as important as the salinity to F-8s.

The tank pH is not often terribly important to FW or many BW fish, The stability offered by aragonite sand appears beneficial to F-8s.