WTB - Starting tank for 6 year old (and dad) who asked Santa for Puffer

[Zfish]

Our son has been obsessed with all things salt water for couple years and last years trip to Monterey Aquarium made him even more excited to have a saltwater tank at home. We talked him out of jelly fish but he still loves the porcupine puffer. We would love to have coral too but know that puffers can be incompatible with most. Maybe we will set up a small separated coral tank for dad to work on?

We found a puffer at Todd's (unless we come across one we like better.) Have a lead on a 125 g 72 inch tank. If we go with this tank, we need a skimmer, lights, more sand, rock(live?/cured?), QT tank.

What do you recommend and or have for sale?

Nice to meet so many nice helpful people at Coral sale and online this past week.

Albert, Shawn and Zack

 

[Fitz19d]

Puffers are pretty easy to get, so I would encourage go slow to make sure you do it right, less someone be traumatized by a floating dead puffer. Make a gift of some of the equipment and a note saying it's good for one Puffer Habitat or some such. You are going to want to if nothing else cycle the tank properly first.

They are not reef safe, but I thought you could still do corals, just not certain things they'd chew on like clams. IDK because I avoided them due to having other things they like to eat..

My suggestion would be a FOWLR. If you already plan no corals that can allow you to stock up on some of the cool non reef safe fish. Whether it's more of an aggressive tank or just a lot of other things. Only problem is at least for me some of the cool things I'd want for a fowlr require a 200+ tank.

If you do want corals, keep in mind adequate lighting can actually be one of your more expensive items. Either high up front with LED or still decently high for a good T5HO/MH fixture and replacements. (I'm a fan of reefbreeders basic units or even more-so photon series have been real nice w/ built in controller and a remote)

 

[Zfish]

Thanks for the information! So much to learn! No planning on having a floating fish so we are going slow. Have been working on this for 2 months, research, reading etc. Just meet some nice folk from forum this past weekend and learned a ton more. What are the fish you would do in 200+? I know he would have quite this list if money were no object. Dad wanted corals until we learned it wouldnt work so maybe we will have two tanks.

Thanks again,

Shawn

 

[FinsUp]

There are SOOOOO many cool fish for a FOWLR tank. Lionfish, marine bettas, sweetlips, groupers, boxfish, wrasses, triggers... and not all of them require huge amount of space.

 

[sethsolomon]

in a 200g+ tank you could do a lot of cool stuff. My personal opinion is do a pvc rock structure and elevate the rock so you have a nice open sand bed so you could do something cool like stingrays, bamboo sharks, puffers, triggers, angels, butterflys, and such.

 

[Fitz19d]

I'm a bad one to answer since I don't quite have that tank. But with a big predator fowlr I'd want all the cool big stuff like groupers, triggers, lions, maybe an eel, harlequin tusk. Etc. Problem is some of those still wont play with each other. (For example a big volitan lionfish will eat your small fish but is kinda a big blimp and known to have it's fins chewed on by puffers and I think triggers...)

I'd do small species tank and save a bigger one for coral but the puffers amongst others again require pretty good sized tanks when they grow up and buying small with "well upgrade later" virtually never ends well. But I wouldn't do a small tank for coral, but then again I have a problem and even my 215 is flush to the walls with stuff and no room for more. If you can control yourself can make a gorgeous cube tank or a 55g long when you artfully decorate/pick your favorite corals. (vs I've got the zoo of just about everything.)

Someone else might chime in, as long as you don't want clams, shrimps, and certain other things. I believe you could still do the coral and puffer in same tank. Thing to watch for some of those big fish though is they also are very dirty and so keeping clean water for water quality sensitive things like sps is an issue. But if you like them, you could probably do a big softy tank full of shrooms, leather, toadstools etc.

 

[FinsUp]

:rofl:

We're already tryin' to get them to upgrade to a bigger tank, and they don't even have the first one yet! How did I know that would happen?

Try to keep in mind that bigger = more expensive. Bigger pumps, more heaters, bigger skimmer, more lighting, bigger sump, etc.

 

[SkyShark]

Check out frogfish/anglers. One of my favorites and they don't take up too much space - just keep in mind they can eat pretty much any fish/shrimp their size or smaller.

 

[Zfish]

Any leads on a for sale tank, equipment, etc? We have one possibility but told it was over priced. Will go back and offer less and see what they say. Have a very excited 6 year old so trying hard to at least get something for him started...A picture just sucks for Christmas!

 

[Zfish]

Right?!?! Two months ago we were looking for a 55 now we are up to 125 so I think we will stop there for now.

 

[sethsolomon]

I have a 60g cube that might become for sale if Mike and Cindy sell me their 180g.

 

[WatercolorsGuy]

I have a FOWLR going right now. It contains a spawning pair of maroon clowns, a clown trigger, a Niger trigger, a copperband butterfly fish , a pearlscale butterfly and a 7-8" porcupine puffer.
I really shouldn't call it a FOWLR. ... Because even though it does have a lot of live rock it is also home to 4 RBTA s, numerous leather corals, LPS corals, SPS corals and a ton of zoas. I even have a couple long neck clams and some snails in there. The butterflys sometimes taste the corals but every one else is well behaved with not trying to destroy anything. The only thing I wouldn't trust in there would be tridacna clams and any shrimp species. Of course your results may vary...but if you go slow and research animals before you buy...you will enjoy the hobby.

 

[Zfish]

Nice tank Watercolorguy! My son was excited to see how well the puffer was behaving. Hope ours is similar so we can have some great colors in tank.

 

[Turbo4toy]

Although I suppose you could buy an already established tank that someone was selling and get a puffer as well. It would be a hard surprise to hide though.

 

[Zfish]

We went with tank from mom and dad and Santa is in charge of puffer. Tank is up and running and puffer on hold at FS.

 

[Sophie1213]

I dont know if anyone has seen yet, but on craigslist there is a 125 g dual corner flo predrilled tank for $130!! I mailed them yesterday and they still have it