The Puffer Forum

According to AqAdvisor, two green spotted puffers in my 55 gallon tank would put it at 176% stocking level. It also says my canister filter (SunSun 303-B) only has the capacity to do 54% of what's needed. This doesn't seem right to me at all, can someone explain?

I know people who keep a couple puffers in similar sized mbuna tanks, so I don't see how the above statistics can possibly be correct. The stocking level cannot be anywhere near 100% considering puffers are tiny relative to the tank size, and you could easily have 5 without crowing their swimming room. Though, I'm not a puffer expert so if this is the case please explain!

If AqAdvisor is wrong, how many could I realistically fit in the tank? I'm ok with getting an additional filter if that is the only issue.

1st of all, puffers need a highly complex environment, which means lots of decor which means less swimming room. Imagine 2 Nerf footballs maneuvering around that. Here was my 55g with 2 adult GSPs. I actually also had a Ceylon puffer in there but I really felt bad for their lack of room. Even with just 2 GSPs, it looked crowded.

I see, thank you!

What about the filtration?

Since you're wanting GSP's the goal, hopefully, is to convert them to full marine where they will thrive. Then, you can go with a FOWLR (Fish Only With Live Rock) setup; with enough live rock and a few power heads, mechanical filtration becomes unnecessary.

In the meantime, I would suggest over-filtration; puffers are messy eaters that produce a lot of waste. I would put at least a 75G filter on a 55, until you can get enough live rock and get it going.

bigpuff wrote:I see, thank you!

What about the filtration?