MBU Puffer Minimum Temperature
Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2014 2:42 pm
All,
FIrst off, HI!!! Long time watcher, first time poster. Second I hate "minimum" questions too, especially for tank size (which this isn't), so take it as a "minimum to be completely happy" question. For my background I've been in the freshwater hobby for years, always with smaller (100g or less) tanks. My wife and I just signed a build contract to build our dream house, and there is a spot in the basement specifically for the fish tank. I can easily afford / fit a ~400 gallon tank and have researched extensively options for it of what fish to put in. However I have ALWAYS loved puffers, though I have never owned one. MBU are my favorite hands down, due to the personality / size / ability to keep them with tankmates (usually...). I realize 300-400 is considered a minimum for them, and I hate a cramped fish, so if I were to go the MBU route I'd get a 10'x4'x30" tank (or maybe even 12' since it doesn't add that much). The aquarium itself would be a few thousand more $$ up front, which is not ideal but manageable, but what I'm really concerned with is heat. Heat load requirement and also heat dumped into the room scales with temperature difference between the room and the tank. So if I keep my room at ~70-72 keeping the tank at 80 vs 75 would approximately double the heat requirement. I think a ~700 gallon aquarium at 80 would not only be a prohibitive heating bill, but also keep it uncomfortably warm in the basement and crank up the cost of my A/C bill as well, where as a 700 gallon aquarium at 75 degrees should be manageable from both fronts.
To further complicate things I do live in Minnesota, USA. So in the winter months I actually wouldn't mind cranking the temperature up, because warming the room wouldn't be a bad thing and it would just be a slightly less efficient way to heat the house. So I could potentially do 75 in the summer and 80 in the winter - the fish would see seasons, they'd just happen to be opposite of the actual season.
Any thoughts on this? Most websites list temperature as 75-80, anyone keep them at 75 no problems? Anyone go even lower than that?
The other thing related to temperature requirements is tank material. Glass has approximately double the heat transfer rate vs acrylic, and as such would be significantly more expensive to operate with. However I have read some of the "window surfing" puffers do they like to show some teeth, which can seriously scratch acrylic. Can anyone with first hand experience confirm this, perhaps even with some pictures?? I found some examples of people saying it was a possibility, but I haven't found any hard data just a "friend of a friend of a friend' stories.
If it matters for tankmates with a MBU I would do smaller schooling fish - silver dollars, congo tetras, maybe some small rift lake cichlids, etc. Basically have the MBU be the centerpiece fish and then have 50 smaller guys swimming around trying to avoid making him mad. For filtration I am going to do a pond style pressurized bead filter (lots of brands to choose from), mostly because they are by far the easiest to clean since the back flushing only takes 5-10 minutes and you don't even get wet, and I'd couple that with a drip system for water changes. With those two things my only real maintenance would be vacuuming / scooping shells off the floor (or maybe I'll just let it go and eventually have a crushed coral looking substrate from the shellfish? Hah!).
FIrst off, HI!!! Long time watcher, first time poster. Second I hate "minimum" questions too, especially for tank size (which this isn't), so take it as a "minimum to be completely happy" question. For my background I've been in the freshwater hobby for years, always with smaller (100g or less) tanks. My wife and I just signed a build contract to build our dream house, and there is a spot in the basement specifically for the fish tank. I can easily afford / fit a ~400 gallon tank and have researched extensively options for it of what fish to put in. However I have ALWAYS loved puffers, though I have never owned one. MBU are my favorite hands down, due to the personality / size / ability to keep them with tankmates (usually...). I realize 300-400 is considered a minimum for them, and I hate a cramped fish, so if I were to go the MBU route I'd get a 10'x4'x30" tank (or maybe even 12' since it doesn't add that much). The aquarium itself would be a few thousand more $$ up front, which is not ideal but manageable, but what I'm really concerned with is heat. Heat load requirement and also heat dumped into the room scales with temperature difference between the room and the tank. So if I keep my room at ~70-72 keeping the tank at 80 vs 75 would approximately double the heat requirement. I think a ~700 gallon aquarium at 80 would not only be a prohibitive heating bill, but also keep it uncomfortably warm in the basement and crank up the cost of my A/C bill as well, where as a 700 gallon aquarium at 75 degrees should be manageable from both fronts.
To further complicate things I do live in Minnesota, USA. So in the winter months I actually wouldn't mind cranking the temperature up, because warming the room wouldn't be a bad thing and it would just be a slightly less efficient way to heat the house. So I could potentially do 75 in the summer and 80 in the winter - the fish would see seasons, they'd just happen to be opposite of the actual season.
Any thoughts on this? Most websites list temperature as 75-80, anyone keep them at 75 no problems? Anyone go even lower than that?
The other thing related to temperature requirements is tank material. Glass has approximately double the heat transfer rate vs acrylic, and as such would be significantly more expensive to operate with. However I have read some of the "window surfing" puffers do they like to show some teeth, which can seriously scratch acrylic. Can anyone with first hand experience confirm this, perhaps even with some pictures?? I found some examples of people saying it was a possibility, but I haven't found any hard data just a "friend of a friend of a friend' stories.
If it matters for tankmates with a MBU I would do smaller schooling fish - silver dollars, congo tetras, maybe some small rift lake cichlids, etc. Basically have the MBU be the centerpiece fish and then have 50 smaller guys swimming around trying to avoid making him mad. For filtration I am going to do a pond style pressurized bead filter (lots of brands to choose from), mostly because they are by far the easiest to clean since the back flushing only takes 5-10 minutes and you don't even get wet, and I'd couple that with a drip system for water changes. With those two things my only real maintenance would be vacuuming / scooping shells off the floor (or maybe I'll just let it go and eventually have a crushed coral looking substrate from the shellfish? Hah!).
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