It's a been a long while but I'm back and rusty.. new setup!

[Electrobes]

Well I haven't done Freshwater in about three or four years.. I left after discovering Reef Keeping and never really looked back. But now as I am moving and decided it was best to give my precious corals to a coral farmer friend, plus I am taking a major job change to my new residence I thought I would go back to my first love... Planted tank with Puffers!

After rummaging around in old photo files I remembered the good ol' college days of my planted tank and my two awesome GSP puffers. I decided that this time I would stick to a more freshwater tank (I went Brackish for the GSPs) and go for freshwater puffers in my 40Br. I sold most of my Saltwater equipment but kept some goodies for my new set up.

What I am hoping to get from you guys is whether this set up is good for what I would like to have... any advice to help my rusty freshwater skills would be very appreciated! So here we go.

I am looking to have a planted (From the looks of what I researched and spotted... I's like to have Glosso, Java ferns, and maybe something other than green to grow from the ground to about mid to top of the tank in my 40Br with ___ puffer(s) (Any ideas you guys suggest?).

- Fish: I am not really sure how many ____ puffers would be happy in a 40Br let alone with each other. I had two GSP's for about a year that hung around all the time, but that could have just been luck.

- Substrate: Back in the days of freshwater I used Wal-Mart's ?Shultz? pond gravel as my substrate which seemed to work really well. I have seen/heard about Eco-System as being a great substrate for planted tanks but would like to hear from you guys. Maybe sand?

- Lights: I kept my 2X39 watt HO T5's from my saltwater days and will use these in conjunction with my new 2X(?96?) watt VHO's (I switched from a halide to help keep heat down in my newly puchased enclosed canopy. I would like to know what would be the best light spectrum combo to go with.

- Filtration and Water Movement: I was thinking of going with a XP2 or XP3 (I don't think there was much difference in price) and using it with my AC500 that I kept. It should give me a not so turbulent 15x for my tank turnover. I am thinking this would be great to help prevent algae growth and still not blow away the puffers. As for the content for the canister filter I am still not sure what is used nowadays.. so again would like to hear your opinions I have an idea of using my Phosban Reactor in line with the canister filter with a valve to control the flow through the carbon.

- CO2 addition: I was thinking of using the bio-canister... it's easy to do, and I don't have that big of a system that would need much CO2 (Like that which comes from a bottle-can). But again it's been a while so maybe some new has come up and I would like to hear about it

- Additives: I can't remember what additives worked for me but seeing as that was years ago I haven't a clue about what is used these days. I wasn't big on additives in both my freshwater and Reefing days though, so I doubt I'll prob use much, if any.

That's all I can think of for now.. thank you again for reading and I look forward to your opinions!

Hope this helps with suggestions for a freshwater puffer and it's preferred environment!

[PuffTheMagicFishy]

Hi there! Check out the Freshwater section of the PufferPedia to find out what species of puff would be happy in your 40g br. You could maybe go with a couple of South American puffers, or you could have a gaggle of 8 dwarf puffs. Maybe a breeding project with some C. irrubescos, a male and three females? Or a single-specimen tank with a lovely lurker puff who'd love all those plants to hide in, like a T. abei, baylei, barbatus, miurus, palembangensis, or suvatti?

One thing's for sure, you won't be able to have green spotted puffs. They require full marine conditions at maturity.

Best of luck! Keep us updated on your progress!