The Puffer Forum

Looking for opinions on a tank for my future Dwarf Puffer. I was originally planning on buying the Fluval Spec V, but when I went to the store to buy it, they only had the Fluval Chi (also 5 gallons). I figured it must be comparable, and being the impulsive person that I am, I bought it. Upon further research, I found out that the filter was very weak and inefficient. I can confirm this, as it has not become any less cloudy as the day I set it up, 2 weeks ago. So basically, should I try and cycle the Chi, put a DP in and risk hurting/killing him? Or should I put down the extra 70-80 bucks for the Spec V? I really don't want to invest 4-6 in cycling the Chi if it's not worth it, but I'm open to any suggestions/personal experiences with the tanks. Thanks

What's wrong with just buying a 5-10g glass aquarium, with a top & a filter?

PufferPunk, you bring up a very good point. I guess the whole time I was so caught up in how amazing it was going to look that I never worried about it actually housing a fish. Here's what I decided: Try out the Fluval Chi, because 1. I already have it and it's set up, and 2. Maybe the other people were overstocking their tanks or had bad luck. The tank could work fine for one DP for all I know. However, if the filter does end up being too weak, I can just remove the current one, and retrofit it with a better (yet probably cheaper) one at a local shop with easy-to-find replacement filters, etc. What I realized is that I do like how the Chi looks, it's just the filter holding it back (if anything). This sounds like a solid plan to me, but feel free to weigh in. Thanks for the reply.

I would upgrade the filter now rather than finding out later it is insufficient. Always over filter a puffer tank, you can't do it any other way really. I get what you say about the tank looking nice but nice looking tanks often need slight modification to be functional