The Puffer Forum

It's a 55 gallon and will soon be home to F8's. As for what's currently in there, I have two nice looking base rocks and sand substrate.

Looking for any and all suggestions of what else to put in it to make it interesting for the puffers.

PS. The salinity level will be around 1.005 so not all plants will work.

Aragonite sand?

No, pH neutral sand. The day I put the base rocks in there it raised my pH from 6.8 to 7.4, and I still have to add the salt. So I think I should be good from a pH & hardness level but I'm away right now and I'll have to check when I get back.

Just looking for some more decorations that the puffers would find interesting. I was thinking about having more decorations than I could put in the tank and then switching them out & moving things around every now and again to keep them interested. So any types of decor they seem to like would be great to hear about!

Do they like moss balls or tend to play with anything? I know Oscars sometimes play with ping-pong balls. Wondering if there's a puffer equivalent!

I suggest aragonite sand to keep the pH stable, around 8.
library/puffers-in-focus/fig8/

I know, I've read the article but I bought the sand prior to reading it and I've already filled the tank. If the pH becomes an issue, I'll sort it out but the purposes of this thread was to ask what kinds of decorations people look for when they keep puffers and what they seem to enjoy.

Please disregard my previous post. I thought this was for a BW fish. Regular sand is perfectly fine. I just set up a new 180g for my fahaka. Here's his previous 125g. If I can figure how to get a pic of the 180 off my phone, I'll post that here for you, too.

That's very nice! What are those plants?

And it will be 1.005 salinity, I don't know if you consider that high enough to be brackish or not. Still good with the sand?

Fahakas are NOT BW fish. No salt please.
Most of those plants are plastic, except for the Java fern in the middle. Filbert loves to hang out in his cave:

I didn't know I was getting a Fahaka! I'd be in for a shock! I'm getting figure 8's, you must have me mixed up

LOL, OMG, I'm sooo confused!

OK so, here's my 55g GSP tank:

It's okay! Those are some big GSP's! So am I still good in terms of the sand? The salt should raise the pH to close to 8, right? It's about 7.4 right now without salt.

I'd still use aragonite sand.

Today I got my pH exactly to 8 just with limestone rocks so I have no need for aragonite sand. How did you manage to hide your filter/heater etc with your decorations? Do you put plants in front of them?

Yep

Off topic but I just noticed you say to add marine salt in the article. I have aquarium salt, is this different? Does it matter?