The Puffer Forum

He does this for hours.

Doing Laps

That is hilarious!

Maybe he needs some more decor, like swim throughs & caves to explore? How much lR is in there?

There is a dual cave build-up in the center of the tank. Its just aquascaping base rock but I think around 20-25 pounds. He sleeps in one of the caves and occasionally looks for food in the other but spends most of his time doing loops at that side of the tank regardless of the magfloat being there.

Huge +1 to Pufferpunk's comments above. Perhaps he also needs more current at least along the front glass and a lot more aquascaping. That is stereotyped swimming comparable to a tiger pacing along the bars of it's too-small cage. Fish need exercise. It is not funny at all to me, it is too sad. Give him current and visual complexity and he will do a lot better long term.

HTH

I assume this is a marine system? It is suggested to stock 1 1/2-2lbs live rock/gallon of water.

Lol! That is funny! It's like he's making out with it!

I saw a glimpse of the tank and its not that underdecorated (to me). However, I would put in more because I am an aquascaping hoarder.

Its is brackish at the moment. Sg 1.010 slowly rasing it. From what ive read I start adding lr at 1.020 correct? I picked up about 20 more pounds of base rock and was going to do some more cave buildups with an adhesive putty. I could add a power head to this setup but as it stands now he gets skiddish is the higher current areas of the tank. I have an ehim g65 with the outlet bar of the left side of the tank, and he always stays at the right. Any thoughs for the setup? If needed I can take another video of the full tank and post it.

Best solution is more decor and current, add a powerhead, if it's not too strong he'll learn to deal with it lol. A lot of puffers that are active enjoy swimming against currents.

The filter I have is rated for 250 gallons per hour. This is on a 29 gallon tank. Are there any recommended currents based on tank size? I'll be doing some more cave build ups tonight. I will try to post pictures when I'm done.

You want to aim for 10x turnover with filters, directional flow for exercise can be added with a powerhead (ie along front glass so you see the fish swim against the current). Adding more decor will give the fish more to explore also reducing boredom

I don't often disagree violently with most posters here, but on this set-up I'm afraid that I have to do so. First, there is an aerator hanging in a BW tank, which is asking for salt mess all over the place and difficulty with saly profile from spray losses, and from the apparent vericality of the bubble stream, there is little or no effective horizontal current in the tank and little of no appaerent security refuges available in the water column. It there any backing on the tank at all? I would not even QT a fish in such a barren set-up myself. An opaque background would be my first priority addition.

Next I would add some verticals within the tank to give the fish something better than a magnetic cleaner to "explore" during the transition to SW - if that is the aim. Even relatively cheap plastic stem plants would be better than the current desert, and may be removed when the tank is shifted to FOWLR + skimmer + macroalgae refugium - if that is the final goal.

Stereotyped swimming behavior is not ever amusing at all. It is a symptom of abuse which may well be unintended, but which always needs to be corrected as soon as possible.

Didnt realize I shouldnt have an aerator in the tank. I have the backing trimmed and ready to apply. Im picking up two powerheads tonight.

So apparently I don't take someone saying I abuse my fish all that well. 200 dollars later Ive picked up another 20 pounds of base rock on-top of the other 10 I had waiting to go into the tank. I have setup two Hydor Koralia Nano 425gph powerheads in the tank. This little guy is still very skiddish in any of the higher current areas but I am assuming he will adjust. RTR I know you commented about the air stone. Should I be removing this? I guess I am not too familiar about aeration needs for brackish. I have always run aerators in my fresh tanks and I know that full marine tanks deploy skimmers which provide aeration.

Airstone in BW will make salt spray everywhere! In my 40 years in this hobby, I've never owned an airstone.