50 gallon puffer/cowfish tank [More pictures of 50 gallon tank]

Setup

Tank
50 gallon Island Aquarium setup during July 2000.

Filtration
40 pounds of Fiji live rock from Jeff's Exotic Fish; 2.5 to 3.5 inch deep aragonite sandbed; BakPak II protein skimmer with biobale; activated carbon in the sump. There is a 2.5 gallon refugium inside the 10 gallon sump, but there just wasn't enough room for macro algaes to grow without being exposed to air. I think I'm going to pull the 2.5 gallon and replace it with a plastic tray and filter floss.

Substrate
#1 grade CaribSea aragonite sand.

Circulation
Circulation is tricky with this tank. I tried to make a puffer-safe tank. Bad experiences in the past with puffers and pump intakes convinced me I shouldn't have any pumps inside the tank. Smaller (3" to 5") puffers are destined to become sucked into pump intakes; once my puffer got its EYE sucked in the intake of a Maxi-Jet 1200...uhhuuhuhhh. So anyway, the lesson I learned is to avoid having any powerheads or pumps in the tank. I suppose big screens on pump intakes would be another solution, but the screens that come with powerheads definately don't diffuse the suction enough. So what do I use for circulation? A Rio 2500 in the sump is the main return pump. I run the water through 1/2" vinyl tubing and then spread the flow with a 3/4" PVC elbow a the surface of the tank. I installed two 1" bulkheads even though one would suffice to avoid seeing my puffer sucked to the bulkhead. Additional water circulation is provided by the return from the BakPak2 skimmer (the skimmer's pump is housed safely in a surface skimmer). Two airlines also provide circulation by creating bubbles. I don't use airstones, just plain airline tubing. At one point I had five airlines in the tank as the sole means of circulation; that worked too, although a lot of space was dedicated to tubing. Tank volume is circulated approximately 10 times per hour.

Lighting
Two 40-watt normal output flourescents. I'm using a $12 shop light from Home Depot and two 6500K G.E. Ultra Daylight bulbs that cost about $5 each. The 6500K Ultra Daylights have a noticeable green color, but look better to my eye than the standard shop light bulbs. Eventually I'll try some other cheapo bulb colors. I'm using Island's glass tops to keep the metal shop light from rusting too quickly.

Essential equipment
Kent Float valve, drilled sump and water reservoir. The footprint of this tank makes water evaporate very quickly. This is the first tank I've installed an automated water top off system on, and I will definately do so on all future tanks. I use a six gallon plastic gas can as a reservoir; it holds about a week of topoff water.
Floor switch. I bought a $5 foot switch, the kind people use to turn Christmas tree lights on and off, at Home Depot. Now I can turn the lights on and off from my bed, which is kind of nice. My puffer is the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. I'll shut up before I sound like a complete dork.

Temperature
I shoot for an average temperature of 80 degrees. I haven't found any authorative sources regarding water temperatures and Hawaiian puffers.

Salinity
1.025. And with the automated top off system, it is constant!

pH
No idea.

Livestock

• Jiggly Puff, a Hawaiian porcupine puffer fish -- my favorite fish so far.
• A recently added Hawaiian long horn cow fish, that has yet to be named, but will be called Horney Flower if my girlfriend's niece gets her way.

• Three big (4"-6") hermit crabs to keep the sand bed clean.
  
• Three small (2"-3") scarlet hermit crabs to keep the rocks reasonably clean.
  

• Sugar Cube, Hawaiian porcupine puffer fish
  
• Square Pusher, spiney box fish
  

Maintenance

Water changes (2-4 hours/month) vary but average around 25% per month. I mix salt with reverse osmosis water purchased at a grocery store or with deionized water filtered through two Tap Water Purifiers.

Algae scraping (1 hour/week) takes up most of my maintenance time. I have diatoms on the glass after a couple of days, but it spreads slowly due to the less-than-intense lighting and short photoperiods.

Comments

I'll have something to say soon!
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