The Puffer Forum

Hello, thought I'd introduce myself This may be a bit long for some but I really love sharing our tanks.

We started keeping fish around May last year, got off on the wrong foot a smidge but everything is great now and I love love love my fishies.

We have 6 tanks, if you include the quarantine (which will be getting converted to a puff tank soon).
Here are sizes and stocking~

129g - No fishies yet, but finally has water and sand in! Planned stocking is 1 Black Ghost Knife, 1 Leopard Ctenopoma, 1 Striped Peacock Eel, 2 Angelfish, 3 Bichirs (Delhezi, Palmas Palmas, Palmas Buettikoferi)

55g - 1 Golden Gourami (Tinkerbell), 1 Longfin Albino Bristlenose Pleco, 1 Bamboo Shrimp, 1 Blue Mystery Snail (Turbo), 1 Female Guppy, 15 Rummynose Tetras, 7 Albino Cories, 7 Khuli Loaches.
There are also 2 angelfish that are temporarily in there until the 129 is ready.

20g Long - 1 Balloon Crowntail Betta (Discord), 1 Habrosus Cory, 1 Purple-Striped Mystery Snail (Spyro).
We had 15 cories and they slowly dwindled down, tested water each time and there were no ammonia or nitrites, so not sure what happened.

20g Flatback Hex - 2 Peacock Gudgeons (1M:1F), 9 Pseudomugil Gertrudae/Spotted Blue-Eyes, 9 Neon Tetras.

10g Quarantine - 1 Longfin Lemon Drop Bristlenose Pleco -- After he moves out I plan on putting in a Zebra Puffer/Carinotetraodon Salivator.

5g - 2 Fundulopanchax Gardneri Killifish (1M:1F), 1 Zebra Nerite Snail -- This is my fiance's tank. I forced him to get a tank, although I do all the maintenance on it, and he chose the fish.
Will try to upgrade this to a 10g as I'm sure they'd appreciate the room and I hate trying to clean the 5g with my bulky siphon.

Picture time!

129g, still needs to clear up and has bubbles still. I did poke through the substrate with some chopsticks though and got most of them. (Excuse the computer screen reflection)


55g











20g Long -- Bit barren since we took out hornwort & dwarf water lettuce yesterday.



Old but still favorite pic of Discord

Old pic of Spyro, the purple-striped mystery snail. I don't have an updated one since she's missing.. :'(

And some of her babies that she has left me, they're so cute.


20g Flatback Hex -- We took out almost all the plants yesterday as they had lots of algae. We didn't realize the tank was covered in algae because the lights we had on it were not very bright. New one showed it quite well!

Some older close-ups of the inhabitants..




10g Quarantine -- Looks yellow-y due to tannins from the wood we got for the plec. If you look closely in the FTS, on the cave near the heater, very tiny but definitely there, is the plec



5g





Hopefully someone enjoys the pics. Thank you to the people who have helped me already!

Very nice!

scpion wrote:Very nice!

Thank you! c:

What plants do you have in the 5g? I love them, I'd love to try some in my peapuffer tank! And do you fertilize them, how much and with what? (I've never really had success with plants, but I also do next to nothing to take care of them LOL!)

G S P Freak wrote:What plants do you have in the 5g? I love them, I'd love to try some in my peapuffer tank! And do you fertilize them, how much and with what? (I've never really had success with plants, but I also do next to nothing to take care of them LOL!)

Uh, one of them is java fern, I think that's the one in the lefthand corner. I know it shouldn't be planted but it seems like it's doing fine.
The floating plants are dwarf water lettuce. And the rest...I have no idea! XD I'm a plant noob.

I don't fertilize them, I think the light might be strong? Not sure, it's an incandescent hood so we're using one of those twisty bulbs you can get at home depot, and it's the 'daylight' kind, super bright.
That light is probably why there's algae, but, it seems to have gotten better after reducing our lighting period.

Sorry if that was a bit more info than you wanted >.< and a bit less on the plant list! Hopefully someone else may know?

Welcome! Love the 55 and the 5 the most! Also really love the tiny baby snails! Had some eggs hatch once, but the little tiny babies didn't survive long

Elaori wrote:

G S P Freak wrote:What plants do you have in the 5g? I love them, I'd love to try some in my peapuffer tank! And do you fertilize them, how much and with what? (I've never really had success with plants, but I also do next to nothing to take care of them LOL!)

Uh, one of them is java fern, I think that's the one in the lefthand corner. I know it shouldn't be planted but it seems like it's doing fine.
The floating plants are dwarf water lettuce. And the rest...I have no idea! XD I'm a plant noob.

I don't fertilize them, I think the light might be strong? Not sure, it's an incandescent hood so we're using one of those twisty bulbs you can get at home depot, and it's the 'daylight' kind, super bright.
That light is probably why there's algae, but, it seems to have gotten better after reducing our lighting period.

Sorry if that was a bit more info than you wanted >.< and a bit less on the plant list! Hopefully someone else may know?

No ty! that's immensely helpful. Sounds like they're low maintenance, I'll have to see if any LFS have any of those plants.. I think they have java, but idk about the water lettuce (that's the one that interests me most!). I use flourescent bulbs, which are better for plants than incandescent, so I hopefully won't have any problems ^_^.

Welcome! Loved the pics! Can't wait to see puffer pics too!

Nice!
Great pics
A&R

I've always particularly liked killifish.
-R

AH. Forgot to check this!! Sorry for late response.

@Hadla Thank you! I like them too. They're getting bigger Sorry yours didn't last long :c

@G S P Freak Glad it was of some help! Dwarf water lettuce may not be in your LFS. I've seen it online. It's also illegal in some states as some consider it an invasive plant, so may want to check that >.<

@rubymist Thank you! I can't wait to see puff pics either.. XD Will be a bit as money is going towards our 129 set up first.

@FishFan Thank you! Quite like our killis, they nibble at my fingertips when I feed them.

Did I mention, I have that same skull in my tank?

Great shots and great tanks!

However regarding your tank in the last couple pics, you got a nasty problem that I am currently dealing with in my 10g and I will quote another forum member on it:

El Scorpio wrote:Cyanobacteria! Kill it! Kill it with fire!!

This stuff can spiral out of control fast and become a real problem. I recommend manual removal of the crap growing on the glass. Also, the stuff hates water movement, so use a powerhead and increase aereation. Don't forget surface agitation - very important in an aquarium. Without it, the water on the surface goes stagnant and prevents gasses from leaving the water, and prevents oxygen from going in.

The main problem with Cyano is that it is an aerobic bacteria, which means that it consumes oxygen. It produces oxygen too, yeah, but only when it is photosynthesizing (cyano, while technically a bacterium, photosynthesizes like an algae), and even still it will take in more than it puts out. The more cyano in the tank, the less oxygen in the water - up to and including the point where there's not enough oxygen in the water to sustain aquatic life.

I had a cyano explosion that I couldn't control literally wipe out my entire tank, and I had to tear the whole thing down and start over from the substrate up. Not fun. Take it seriously.

Hmm funny coincidence you have the same kind of plants in that tank that my infected tank has. This has me wondering if those particular plants are carriers.

Cyanobacteria are numerous and extremely widespread, including being airborne.

Oh blarg! Sorry for late response again!

@Pufferpunk That's funny you have the same skull ^_^ I quite like it.

@sgtmyers88 Yeah I know D: Another forum told me a chemical to put in to kill it. I removed a lot of it by hand, and the flow in the tank is fine.
It's gone now actually, just don't have any updated pictures! I don't know if I got lucky or what :C

@RTR That is quite interesting Always learning things in this hobby!

Thank you all for the comments. I love reading them~