5.5 gallon Planted Dwarf Puffer Tank

[LEROY]

This is the start of my new tank. It's got one dwarf puffer and an otto in there and some more puffers on the way.
Super low tech tank, dual T-5 diy fixture, no CO2 but planning on adding some Flourish tablets or liquid maybe, if someone could add some insight into their benefits or disadvantages that would be appreciated. I will try and get some better photos as well as soon an my girlfriend gets her new camera.
-Steve

[dan2x38]

I had a setup very similar to this with dwarf puffers and pond snails... The plants did great I never added anything just light. Since I was feeding frozen food mostly brine shrimp my thought was it supplied enough nutrients for the plants along with the fish. I was afraid algae would take hold if I added ferts. I had several hi-tech planted tanks at the same time using EI dosing. I had the tank for close to a year with never a problem. I had to keep adding pond snails from time to time though. It was one of my favorite tanks - I had 16 then. Really love those little guys it is so true on how much personality they have.

[charlie]

This is the start of my new tank. It's got one dwarf puffer and an otto in there and some more puffers on the way.
Super low tech tank, dual T-5 diy fixture, no CO2 but planning on adding some Flourish tablets or liquid maybe, if someone could add some insight into their benefits or disadvantages that would be appreciated. I will try and get some better photos as well as soon an my girlfriend gets her new camera.
-Steve

Hi Steve, before considering adding any nutrient to a tank it is important to understand the relation between the various nutrients in a planted tank, I will try to relate my understanding of it ( could be wrong).
There are 4 nutrients involved in the growth of plants, they are & listed in order of importance & priority
(1) Light & yes light is considered a nutrient ,it is the most important, as it is the one that dictates all others.
(2) Carbon - a large percentage of plant tissue is carbon
(3) Macro nutrients - Nitrogen, phosphates & Potassium
(4) micro nutrients - trace elements - Iron,zinc, cobalt, copper etc,
The relation is as follows, light intensity will control the speed of growth & type of plants you grow, slow growers such as java fern, annubias etc does not need high light.
I remember reading somewhere where it was described that light is like the gas pedal of a car - the more you push it the faster the plants attempt to grow.
If we accept that as fact then for the plants to grow strong & healthy it needs carbon which is like the calcium needed for kids to grow with strong healthy bones .
Now we have the first 2 nutrients linked, we can move on to the macro nutrients, in short for the plants to continue to develop & photosynthesize properly it also needs to uptake Nitrogen, phosphate & potassium, these are needed in larger doses than the other trace elements thus the name macro nutrients, lastly in the chain is the trace elements in much smaller requirements hence the name micro nutrients, I guess the Macro & micro nutrients can be described as your vitamins that we need to sustain ourselves.
As you can see from the above relation, the light intensity & type of plant will dictate if & how much you supplement a planted tank, keep in mind our tap water is already saturated with trace elements & the natural elements of an aquarium will provide the macro nutrients.
The decision to supplement is then based on how much is present in the tank & how fast the plants is up taking it, obviously if the plants are up taking more that the natural state of the tank can provide , the necessity of supplementing is paramount for the plants to continue to grow healthy.
Another bit of info that helps , is understanding the way plants uptake nutrients, in general they are 2 ways plant take up nutrients - (1) Through the root system (2) through the leaves, the root feeders tend to be plants such as Swords , Crypts to name a few, a good rule of thumb is if a plant has a large root structure, it`s preference is root feeding. The plants with small fragile roots AKA as stem plants preference is through the leaf structure , this give the hobbyist a better understanding of how & why they dose , example root tabs would favour the root feeders while water column dosing would favour the stem plants, as mentioned earlier these are nutshell explainations.
I might have missed something or mis represent some info, if so i`m sure others will add to it, this is just my understanding & is in no way scientific  or gospel  ;)l, in other words subject to correction.
Hope it helps.

A good go to reference site


http://rexgrigg.com/

[irene]

Wow!  Thanks for this, what a good refresher!

[LEROY]

Thanks, a lot of things I didn't know.

[LEROY]

Some new pics and progress on the tank.

[charlie]

Some new pics and progress on the tank.

Looking good

[Palufreak]

I wouldn't put more than 1 puffer in there since they need 5G each!!