10g Build Journal.

Hello TFF!

After my betta died ( Blaze) I drained out my 10g tank. I found and removed over 50 cherry shrimp! (One question , some of them are a darker color, mostly the males. It's an unnatural discoloration of you ask me. Just a question.)

I plan to take all of the sand out tomorrow. (In some places it was black, why? I'm just going to get rid of it all.)

I'd like to setup a Pea Puffer tank. How many could I get? What do they eat? Are they compatible with shrimp? Do they need a blackwater tank, and if so, how do I set one up? Sorry for all of the questions.

(P.S. I plan to journal every day on this thread and I will include pictures! )

Not blaze!!!

The puffers will eat your shrimp

Following!

Puffer will eat almost everything the same size, smaller than them; snails, shrimp, fry.

The shrimp colour is probably due to genetics or lack of variation in the genetics that your shrimp have. Most people start off with a small group of shrimp or snails and they are related. After multiple generations in the same tank with no new bloodlines, you start to see particular traits (colour, shape, size, etc) in those shrimp or snails. Adding new bloodlines every year helps prevent weaker shrimp/ snails.

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Black sand is anaerobic (lacking oxygen). Basically some food or fish waste got buried under the sand and it went off. The anaerobic bacteria caused the sand to go black. Regular gravel cleaning helps prevent anaerobic pockets from forming in the substrate.

Pea puffers do not need blackwater. They do need soft water (GH less than 150ppm) and a pH between 6.5-7.5.

Pufferfish cannot be kept with shrimp, crabs, mussels, snails or any fish or crustacean because they will eat them. Pufferfish should be kept ina single species tank.

But I should feed the pea puffers snails, correct?

Here is the 10g after I drained it:

As you can see, the sand is nasty. I’m going to completely get rid of it and get new sand. Do Pea Puffer eat BRH snails? If so, I won’t get rid of them.

Here are all of the shrimp I rescued:

There are a lot more than just that. As I said, over 40-50.

I plan to get this sand in my 10g, because it looks so good in my 29g:

Pufferfish need food with a hard shell to help wear down their teeth. If they don't get hard shells to crunch on, their teeth grow too big and the fish won't be able to eat.

You can feed them shrimp, snails, mussels and various other foods.

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If you only have a thin layer of sand (1/2 inch max), it will be easier to clean and less likely to turn anaerobic.

Do you breed the redcherries with the betta?

Colin_T said:

Pufferfish need food with a hard shell to help wear down their teeth. If they don't get hard shells to crunch on, their teeth grow too big and the fish won't be able to eat.

You can feed them shrimp, snails, mussels and various other foods.

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If you only have a thin layer of sand (1/2 inch max), it will be easier to clean and less likely to turn anaerobic.

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Only 1/2 inch of sand? That won’t be enough to plants stuff in. Will it?

Pea puffer fish are the only puffer fish that dont' need hard shells for their teeth because they stop growing but they do love snails and things like that a lot.

Meg0000 said:

Pea puffer fish are the only puffer fish that dont' need hard shells for their teeth because they stop growing but they do love snails and things like that a lot.

Click to expand...

Would Malaysian Trumpet Snails work? Or Blue Rams Horn snails?

PheonixKingZ said:

Would Malaysian Trumpet Snails work? Or Blue Rams Horn snails?

Click to expand...

I would say ramshorn snail just because they are smaller in general and pea puffer fish are also very small but I think both would work.

1/2 inch of sand is probably not enough for most plant but you can grow plants in pots and that will stop the sand going anaerobic.

We use to grow plants in 1 or 2 litre plastic icecream containers. You put an inch of gravel in the bottom of the container, then spread a thin layer of granulated garden fertiliser over the gravel. Put a 1/4inch (6mm) thick layer of red/ orange clay over the fertiliser. Dry the clay first and crush it into a powder. Then cover that with more gravel.
You put the plants in the gravel and as they grow, their roots hit the clay and fertiliser and they take off and go nuts. The clay stops the fertiliser leaching into the water.
You can smear silicon on the outside of the buckets and stick gravel or sand to them so it is less conspicuous. Or you can let algae grow on them and the containers turn green.

Ok, thank you both. I will wash the sand today and get rid of all of that nasty old sand after I wash the new stuff. I can’t wait!

Ok guys, I took all of the nasty sand out, cleaned the tank up, washed new sand and put it in the tank. I’ll fill it up with de chlorinated water. Stay tuned!