Getting porcupine puffer tomorrow

[Ace25]

So.. I have to ask.. what are you doing about all that cyano? That is a pretty bad outbreak.

If this is your first puffer your in for a huge treat... such personality those fish have. Wait until you see it get all happy when it sees you enter the room.. swims right to the front of the glass wagging its tail quickly.. they are the best.

 

[AC2020x]

Thanks, and yes I know. My current plan is to try my best on cutting back on light/ overfeeding. I am planning on also getting some chaeto to go in the first chamber of my sump that only has 2 heaters in it. This way I can cut back on excess nutrients as much as possible. I just need to get a light set up first.

I also got a diamond goby who was doing great and looked like parts of the sand was getting better, its hard to tell how much of the tank he would have sifted however. He was doing great, sifting sand and eating shrimp until he jumped about 5 days after I got him. There is absolutely no way to get out of the tank, so he must have jumped out while I was feeding and I thought he just went back hiding into his cave, or theres a good chance I may have left the lid open.

Found him dried up late the next day on the side of the tank. -- So I'm thinking of getting another one in a while after these fish are more settled in.

I've also tried Chemiclean which didn't seem to help whatsoever.

Have any other ideas?

 

[Ace25]

Well, with a puffer in the tank your options are limited. No more snails in the tank to help out because the puffer will just eat them.

Diamond gobies are the worst offenders I have ever seen when it comes to jumping, followed by blue headed jawfish as a close second. I won't even try and attempt them because of that and I feel I have a pretty good "jump proof" setup.

I was a big fan of chemi-clean up until recently... whatever change happened to that product was a big change for the worse IMO and now I will not recommend that product again.

So... that said.. I think your best options for controlling the cyano is 1. get more flow (more powerheads) 2. Reduce the light cycle and 3. try and limit feeding (although right now with new fish that one is a little hard to do since your first goal is to make sure your new fish are "fat and happy"), and 4. Syphon out as much as you can off the sand, carefully so you don't suck out a bunch of sand, when you do water changes.

 

[Fishfriend1]

that puffer is SOOOOOO cute! Call it Mr. Puff lol.

 

[Ace25]

that puffer is SOOOOOO cute! Call it Mr. Puff lol.

Or the obvious name ... "Porky".

 

[AC2020x]

What would you suggest in terms of powerheads? Do you think I should move my current ones around at all? As you can see they are sorta 2/3 up the tank. Do you think I should move them down at all? And what would you suggest adding? I have 3 koralia 3's right now?

 

[Ace25]

Looking at your tank this is what I would do for powerheads..

Move the back K3 to one of the sides so you have 2 K3's on one side, about 1/3 down and spaced apart evenly angled to point towards the front of the tank. The other K3 I would put on the opposite side as far down in the back corner as possible without stirring up the sand to get flow going behind the rocks. Try and get a "whirlpool" type flow going. Then I would add another 3 powerheads to the back wall, probably 3 of the new Koralia Evo 750's and have those point to the front. They are not that powerful but since your aiming them back to front, shortest part of the tank, that is ok to have smaller powerheads. Anything larger and you will probably just stir up the sand in the front and push it back. JMO.

 

[Pufferpunk]

You think the bioload was a lot before the puffer, just wait until that piggy gets bigger!

 

[countrychick]

Neat little creature

 

[AC2020x]

Thanks for the tips with the power heads, I will definitely look into switching in up a bit. And yeah I agree, once these guys bet big, my Bio-load will be pretty dang big. And I wanted to get more fish!!!!

I'm still thinking about adding something, esspecially with the loss of the hippo tang. But I will definitely wait a while. I was thinking possibly a harlequin tusk or some other type of wrasse, or possibly a flame angel? I'll see how things are looking a little further down the road though.

And I think I got the feeding thing pretty well down pat today with minimal waste. It's nice since the puffer just eats whole chunks of stuff so I don't need to though in alot of food for him to get what he needs. And same with the butterfly and the trigger.