It is a fluval prefilter sponge. Fits on well enough with a bit of coaxing. I dont think i'll have anything small enough to be sucked up by my filter besides tiny snails, but I like to have them for the extra BB growth.
15 gallon column pea puffer journal
- Thread starter vwill279
- Start date
All 4 puffers are fat as can be and doing wonderfully! I lost 3 of the otos, I think due to bad stock (another thread on this). The ghost shrimp mow down any blackworms that the puffers dont eat and they're also helping to eat the algae wafer I put in for the oto. The puffers have already rid my tank of all but the 3 largest ramshorns. Really need to get some MTS for that tank and for my other sand tanks. They are completely ignoring the ghost shrimp, the last remaining oto, and the big ramshorns. I'm hoping that those 3 snails will breed in that tank so there are new snails coming in. I'm also monitoring the snail populations in my other tanks and moving smaller ramshorns over when I find them. No fighting as yet, but some eyeing up of each other. They seem to group up for feeding time, but retreat to their own sections of the tank other times and I find the same ones in the same areas, so I think they've picked their territories. I'm hoping the plants will fill in better by the time they've grown up enough to become really territorial.
I think mine have been doing a number on the MTS, I checked a couple hours after lights out last night and only saw a couple big MTS out, so I dropped in a piece of driftwood from my other tank that was covered with little ones. Still have a couple small mystery snails left in there that have been staying by the top trim to evade the puffers.
awesome thread! i just started my own pea puffer tank! i have two at the moment..they were unexpected and given to me for free ^_^ they now live in a heavily planted 16 gallon with ottos and killifish grow outs its been 4 days...so we will see how it goes^_^ keep up the updates i really enjoy seeing your photos
Your tank looks great. I've kept puffers for years now, and I wanted to put a couple ideas out there for you from my experience. The more plants/decorations you put in the tank, the more personality you will see from them. They get bored easily and will spend a lot of time just buzzing up and down the glass if they don't have a complex environment to explore and stake territories. This will happen faster than your tank will fill in naturally. I know it's not a problem now, but in 4-5 months you will have issues with aggression if it has not happened before then. My suggestion would be to put in something as a stop gap... fake plants, decorations... even if they're not your favorite to look at. It will help them feel more established in the environment. I would not recommend adding any more to your tank. They are aggressive little beasties and they're more horizontally oriented than vertically. Given the relatively small footprint of your tank, it's a big risk. I had 5 in a 29 gallon for a long time with a relatively large colony of red cherry shrimp. They did just fine together. The puffers might have eaten some, but not more than the colony could handle. I hope you like them. They're my favorite fish ever.
Thanks for the input! I wasnt planning on adding any more puffers. After seeing them in the tank, I can see that it is plenty full with the 4. I have one that has claimed the top area by the floating plants as his own and is constantly searching amongst the roots and the undersides of the leaves for snails. I am planning on adding more plants, but my LFS didnt have a good stock when i went in other than the 3 vals I bought. I am hoping to get a couple of small swords for my shrimp tank and then move the large swords in there to the puffer tank. The dwarf chain swords and the tall grass like plant have already sprouted baby plants and I'm hoping that the pearlweed starts to take off as well as it did in my shrimp tank. I'm also going to take a few more cuttings from there and the willow hygro top from one of my other tanks and add it. I'm definitely open to ideas on how to add to the scaping of this tank with its small footprint but still make it look uncluttered and provide enough viewing space.
. looks amazing!