a few questions....

[wuvmybetta]

I was recently given a used tank which needs some cleaning but otherwise it's great, it measures 4 feet long, 18 inches high and 12 inches wide, about how many gallons is that? I'm guessing 50-55, but I just want to be sure so any info will help

Secondly, I'm going to purchase a 27 gallon hex tomorrow and I want dwarf puffers only in it........do they like sand? And playsand.....really If it's sterilized and all that it seems like it would work so I think I may try it, it certainly is cheaper than anything my lfs sells, and also how many puffers would be ok in a 27 gallon, maybe 6ish? possibly 7?, I don't want to overstock or cramp their style
Ok now after I purchase the 27 gallon I'll need to cycle it, should I just take some water from my other tank and add it to the new one ?(before fish of course, I won't make that mistake twice) And just cycle it that way, the ammonia cycling is very interesting but too complex for me I think, or should I buy a fish or two and cycle with them in addition to the cycled water?
Sorry about the question overload but I'll appreciate any advice I can get

 

[CFC]

The 48x12x18 tank you have been given has a volume of 170 litres/37 uk gallons/44 us gallons (not sure where you are).By using the PFK tank stocking guide this tank can hold 67 inches of fish if sowly added over a long period of time.

If you already have a established tank set up then cycling will be easy and quick,just transfer some of the filter media and a couple of handfulls of gravel from your old tank into the new and you can add a couple of fish straight away without problems,the old bacteria will spread to the new media and gravel within a few days and hey presto one fully cycled tank in a week.

Dont know much about puffers so ill leave that to someone else,PUFFERPACK WHERE ARE YOU!!!!!

 

[Jamnog]

heh im going to hate my self for saying this but 48x12x15 is the tank i got and that sait it was 175 litres or 46.23 gallons is the box wrong? anyways thats allot of fish inches i cant wait to pick them am taking my time tho

 

[wuvmybetta]

Ok, Thanks you guys!
Here I sit with a brand spanking new 42 gallon hex ( I had to go bigger because I got a great deal, Happy Mother's Day to meeeeeee )

 

[playfulalliecat]

I went to the trusty aquarium calculator online and it said 44.88 US gallons for the dimensions given.

As for the sand, we used sterilized playsand for ours, out of the Walmart gardening center. It has worked very well for us. All of our fish seem to love it. What we do to cycle a new tank quickly is, if using gravel take some out of an existing and put in the new one and put in a piece of sponge out of our filter. Les cuts the sponges in half so we can "part" them out so to speak. With the sand, we would just take used sponge out. I wouldn't recommend adding a heavy bioload right from the start though. Start with a couple of fish for a while and gradually add more. IME this works the best!

Good luck and enjoy!

 

[wuvmybetta]

Thanks Allie, your a fountain of info I have a couple of questions about the sand, I did swing into Wal-mart and grab a bag & I have 100 of other things I should be doing but I can't stop thinking about the tank and messing with it, I at least want to get the filter on , water, sand and whatnot . I started to rinse the sand and it just turned into mud ,which I should know by now it's the same stuff that's in my kiddos sandbox , we've made mud pies plenty of time. So how did you guys do it? I remember seeing Les mention a tote in another discussion but I thought " .........what?" I tried a bucket , not a good plan, and second ....does your filter filter out the floating muddy sand or what? Will it settle?

 

[playfulalliecat]

Well, when we did the sand, I thought about washing it and then told Les, hey you know what, we have a filter to take care of that! lol We went ahead and put the sand in and let the filter take care of the washing. On the second tank, Les put it into a big tote, filled it with water and kept stirring, stirring and stirring, and draining and doing it over and over like 4 times until the water wasn't cloudy anymore. Yes it looks like mud but it will improve! That definitely worked better as it cleared up in the tank a whole lot faster. Hope this answers your questions. Feel free to ask more!

 

[wuvmybetta]

Thanks again.....but I'm a chicken and I got too scared, the thought of my new tank being cloudy, after dealing with my 1st ones cloudiness for months made me freak out
So I dumped the sand in my kiddos box and went to my LFS and bought some cheap cheap stuff he had that claimed to be for pools (?) filter media, but it looks really pretty
I think I'll try the sand on the next tank because it will be in my bedroom and I won't have to look at the mud while it clears

 

[Pufferpack]

Puffers?...did someone say they wanted Puffers? ...Well since you have that beautiful new 42 gal hex tank you could get 8 or 10 Dwarf Puffers (it's tough but if possible try for 2 females for every male) as well as 6 or 8 nice little Gobies as tankmates. They both seem to enjoy the sand in my Tiny Terror tank, and they are small enough that they don't stir anything up at all. I Thought I had 2 males and 4 females in my pack, but as they have grown and their color patterns have fully developed I have discovered that I have 3 & 3. Each male has a section of the tank (they are in a 25 gal Hex) that he defends against the others, and the females move relatively freely through the whole tank (some minor chasing but not too much)

If you do decide to go with the Puffers the sand is great for contouring into hills and valleys and burying small caves into (I use oversized shot glasses for caves in mine) and the Hex tanks are great for these little guys as you can plant in a semi-circle around the back and sides while leaving the front relatively open for your viewing pleasure. Dwarfs are a joy to own, but they like lots of attention and will sulk if they feel you're not talking to them enough. they are also little beggers and will look at you with their big googley eyes and beg for food, even after you just fed them.
Another advantage to sand in the Puffer tank is that the empty snail shells get cleaned up a lot easier when vacuming because they usually stay on the top of the sand rather than getting lodged in cracks in a gravel bottom.

HTH

Don.

p.s. If you want any more info on Dwarf Puffers let me know, as you've probably noticed I can go on about them for days...

 

[wuvmybetta]

Ok, I DO want more info on them because I'm still not set on anything in particular yet, I was certain I was going for the chiclids until about 30 minutes ago after reading how territorial they are and whatnot so I'm back to square one. My balas will be fine in the tank they're in now until I get the 4 footer set up, then they can go in there. The dwarfs are TOOOOO cute, I was checking them out today at my LFS but the shopkeeper was turning them completely freshwater instead of brackish and the results were noticable because they all seemed to be coming down with white spot so that's what steered me from them, his helper girl was trying to tell me that they do MUCH better in brackish which I believe ....but still.....I was hesitant to purchase a fish with spots on it
But I was really wanting to decrease the load on my 1st tank and move a few out of there into the new one but all the fish except my gold nugget plec,my loaches & my bala are too tiny to live with anything that's on the larger size such as chiclids
what to do, what to do........
So would it be a mistake to buy the puffers who aren't looking so well OR would I almost be saving them if I make this a brackish tank?

 

[wuvmybetta]

I have to correct my mis-spell CICHLIDS, sheeesh I can't even spell it, I'm certainly not worthy of owning some

 

[Jamnog]

i guess the box was wrong

 

[Pufferpack]

I'm glad to hear that the puffers are being put back to FW. If they are Indian Dwarf Puffers they are a true FW puffer and have very little tolerence for brackish. If they are a BW puffer they may be Figure 8's or Green spotted puffers which grow to between 3 and 5 inches. The Indian Dwarf (t.travancouricus/cf. travancouricus) only grow to about 1 3/4 inches. For some good info try Puffer tank or Ian Wests Puffer Pages, There is a good pic of cf. travancouricus on the site we are on now Dwarf Puffer, and Puffernet has some good pics but I've been told not to trust their info as it is frequently wrong.

From all that I have read on Puffer species the Dwarfs are the friendliest both within their own species and with other fish, IMO they are still not suitable for a community tank as they are very mischevious (my pack like to use other fish as amusement park rides, they will grab onto a fin or tail and ride the fish around the tank until they are ripped loose...wheeee ) but they are not mean. They do not take to being bullied either and will eventually snap and go after the fish doing the bullying (don't let their size fool you, they can do quite a bit of damage when they get angry) So far the ony tankmates I have been able to keep with the pack are Bumblebee Gobies (which really should be moved to BW), they are small enough that they won't hurt the puffers, and they don't move around the tank enough to attract the puffers attention, if the puffers do start to take an interest in them the Gobies will chase the puffers away, but stop the chase as soon as the puffer retreats so they don't upset the puffers at all. I have been looking for some Peacock Gudgeons (FW Gobies) to replace the BBG's but no luck so far.

To sum up, I highly recomend the Dwarf Puffers (big surprise as they are my favorite fish, they are what started me off as a Fishaholic) they would be perfect for a Hex tank. They are the most personable fish I have ever seen and one of the sweetest as well. They are hillarious when you feed them snails (which they have to have to grind down their teeth which are really bony plates that grow constantly, if they don't get hard materials like shells to chew on the teeth can grow to the point that they can no longer eat) I give mine about a dozen small pond snails once a month and they rip into them with gusto, you can hear click, click, click for an hour afterwords as they whip the shells across the tank and off the glass.

HTH

Don.

When I get home from work today I'll post some pics of my Tiny Terror Tank so you can see how I went about setting it up specifically for the puffers

 

[wuvmybetta]

Great! I think I'm going to stick with them, that was my original plan anyway and I started getting sidetracked with all the possibilities
I only hesitate because at this moment that tank is plantless, I always buy my plants from a lady on ebay and she doesn't ship until Monday or Tuesday so it will be at least a week before I have any in there for them, so the FW is a good thing huh? They seemed to be stressing out from it, should I add a little bit to this tank? right now it's absolutely salt free

 

[Pufferpack]

I did put a touch of Dr. Fishwells Aquarium salt to the tank when I first got my Dwarfs, but since I found out more about them I haven't added any since. I think if the lps is acclimatizing them back to fresh you would do best to skip the salt at home.