Setting up my 30g tank for C. travancoricus

My friend gave me the 30g tank for free, and I knew as soon as he gave it to me that I wanted to set it up for puffers.

I set it up in one day with a cycled filter, and plants from another tank.

I bought the rocks and driftwood specifically with this setup in mind, there is lots of space under the driftwood.




I used some gray/black pea gravel:



When I was at the LFS, I must've looked crazy arranging pieces of driftwood together, but I had to find some that had a natural flow together:



Once the hardscape was done, I filled it:




Checked how it looked with lights on, to decide where the plants would do best:


Added plants:



The wood was new and untreated so it still leaches a lot of tanin between water changes:




Still a work in progress, I have to add anubias, more fern, and moss:




Lunch! and a nice shot of the gravel:



This is home to a male and two female dwarf puffers, and the livebearers (have had no fin-nipping issues so far).





The drab female in front, the metallic female and the male in the back:






I breed ramshorn snails in a separate tank:

NICE pics and tank set up

Thank you Jesse, I can do better with more patience but I rushed lol

I added more plants to the tank, and need to tie down some more java fern lace and anubias some time today.

my ladies always wanted to do a puffer tank so i bought her a 5gl with mini stand and hood so you and i will be talking about the puffer deal

jessecichlidguy wrote:

my ladies always wanted to do a puffer tank so i bought her a 5gl with mini stand and hood so you and i will be talking about the puffer deal

Cool, i'd be happy to share what i know. I got most of my info from dwarfpuffers.com, and other info from first hand experience with them.

I finally got around to removing two anubias nana and some windelov from another tank and attaching it to a driftwood in this tank.

I'll have a pic up tomorrow, I did a water change and there were too many bubbles.

Hopefully I'll go to my favorite 'plant' LFS in monterey park tomorrow and pick up some ludwigia and more anubias and ferns to put in my 60g.

I'm also on the look out for a larger piece of wood and I think I found it

Really lovely setup! I'm also impressed with how healthy the DP's look, even in the bag. These are fun little fish and you've got a great place to keep them, plus it is very attractive as well - great job!

Very cute! I love puffers! I tried once and failed....maybe I will try again 1 day!

Your tank looks awesome. You have some nice aquascaping skills!

This is an awesome set up!!! Love the puffers!!!! Keep up the amazing work, great Pics!!!!!

Very nice set up!

Very nice setup! If that is what you do quickly...I'd love to see one with great thought put into it sometime. But then again maybe you are like me and too much thought leads to multiple changes and never being satisfied with it.

Thanks for thr cimpliments everyone.

@wildbeanerz, you hit it dead on. i added more plants with more thought and i feel like i ruined the scape. will add more today to see what happens.

Beautiful. I love the puffers :)

Julie

Are you doing brackish? What SG is it at?

FishVixen wrote:

Are you doing brackish? What SG is it at?

Not at all. The Carinotetraodon genus comes from purely fresh waters in Borneo/Sumatra/India.

The other members of this genus (C. lorteti, C. Borneensis, C. irrubesco, C. salivator) grow larger than the travancoricus, but only by a few inches. They are all beautiful true fresh water puffers.