Figure 8 Puffers

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Gavin3171

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I have decided this is what im going to get. Ive ordered them in at my LFS and they will be with me on sunday!

SO! i need to get the tank ready for sunday. Its currently a cycled tropical setup and all my fish are still in there. I am going to be moving them out today to make sure i have enough time to set the tank up for them on the sunday.

My LFS has said i need to add the salt in over the next few days as adding all the salt slowly over a day wont be good for the tank. They originally sold me aquarium salt but im going back tonight to swap it for marine salt as he called me to say he made an error.

The tank is a 63L record 600. Will i need a power head too? to move the water about a bit more? I am going to stick to the rules of 50% water change every week.

Current substrate is play sand.

Also - feeding? What do they mainly eat? Frozen shrimp from the supermarket?
 
You will have to continue feeding the filter while your other fish are out of the tank to keep it cycled, a very small sprinkle of flake food daily should do it.

You can raise your SG up to SG1.002 all in one go, that will be ample for the F8's arrival, I keep my figure 8 tank at SG1.003 at 25DegC. Current recomendations say between SG1.003 and SG1.005.

People will recommend a calcium carbonate substrate such as crushed coral or aragonite sand to keep the water nice and hard. I use a sand substrate but my naturally hard water maintains the tank at just under a PH of 8.

You can feed them a variety of foods, snails will help keep the beak down and so reduce the need for trimming, frozen shrimps with the shell left on can normally be bought at an LFS. Generally all frozen foods such as Bloodworms, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp are all taken readily. Shrimps contain thiamenese though so do not make them the staple food.
 
You will have to continue feeding the filter while your other fish are out of the tank to keep it cycled, a very small sprinkle of flake food daily should do it.

You can raise your SG up to SG1.002 all in one go, that will be ample for the F8's arrival, I keep my figure 8 tank at SG1.003 at 25DegC. Current recomendations say between SG1.003 and SG1.005.

People will recommend a calcium carbonate substrate such as crushed coral or aragonite sand to keep the water nice and hard. I use a sand substrate but my naturally hard water maintains the tank at just under a PH of 8.

You can feed them a variety of foods, snails will help keep the beak down and so reduce the need for trimming, frozen shrimps with the shell left on can normally be bought at an LFS. Generally all frozen foods such as Bloodworms, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp are all taken readily. Shrimps contain thiamenese though so do not make them the staple food.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Can food be purchased from my local supermarket? Like shrimps or anything else?

So far i have put 3 tea spoons of marine salt in and will do so for the next few days untill i have put 13 spoon tea spoons in. I havent got a way of measuring the salinity yet.

Water around here is quite hard anyway so i think i will be ok on that front.

I will dump some food in tonight to keep the filter working. Thanks for that info. Initialy they My LFS have said two will be a good start then get the other two later on. Looking around online it says a 15gal is the Minimum size tank for one. is 4 to many?
 
You will have to continue feeding the filter while your other fish are out of the tank to keep it cycled, a very small sprinkle of flake food daily should do it.

You can raise your SG up to SG1.002 all in one go, that will be ample for the F8's arrival, I keep my figure 8 tank at SG1.003 at 25DegC. Current recomendations say between SG1.003 and SG1.005.

People will recommend a calcium carbonate substrate such as crushed coral or aragonite sand to keep the water nice and hard. I use a sand substrate but my naturally hard water maintains the tank at just under a PH of 8.

You can feed them a variety of foods, snails will help keep the beak down and so reduce the need for trimming, frozen shrimps with the shell left on can normally be bought at an LFS. Generally all frozen foods such as Bloodworms, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp are all taken readily. Shrimps contain thiamenese though so do not make them the staple food.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Can food be purchased from my local supermarket? Like shrimps or anything else?

So far i have put 3 tea spoons of marine salt in and will do so for the next few days untill i have put 13 spoon tea spoons in. I havent got a way of measuring the salinity yet.

Water around here is quite hard anyway so i think i will be ok on that front.

I will dump some food in tonight to keep the filter working. Thanks for that info. Initialy they My LFS have said two will be a good start then get the other two later on. Looking around online it says a 15gal is the Minimum size tank for one. is 4 to many?


Hello,

IMO four F8's is to many for a 60l tank, I used to keep 2 in a 100l tank which was just about bigt enough for the two to have their own space, they may fight amongst each other if they don’t have enough space. Also F8's eat a fair bit of food and create a lot of mess when eating so 60l of water will soon be fouled if you have to feed 4!

Also you want to have plenty of things in the tank for the puffers to explore as they are very inquisitive of their surroundings and get bored very quickly. I added a power head to my puffer tank and they loved playing around in the extra flow so try and make your tank as interesting as possible, otherwise you may find your puffers pace the glass which is a sign of boredom.

Also feeding wise, I fed mine a mix of frozen brineshrimp, bloodworm, mussels, fresh prawn, snails. And they even loved woodlice!!

Good luck F8's are wonderfull fish and I hope to keep more in the future.
 
I have 2 in a 60l but really it is a little too small for them both - 100 litres would be better. For 4 you would want about 200 litres at least.

I have no idea what 13 teaspoons will give you salinity wise; you can pick up some hyrdrometers for only a couple of quid.

you can get stuff from your local supermarket but it will pollute the water far quicker than your standard aquarium fare from the LFS. If there's any left after feeding then take it out immediately! Try unseasoned cockles, mussels, prawns, Neale Monks always suggests Tilapia fillet as a good food.
 

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