Porcupine Puffer

[dafunk5446]

Hello, I was just wondering if anyone could give me some help. I was wondering if it was ok to keep a porcupine puffer in a 120 gallon tank with a undergravel filter, till I can save up enough to buy a wet/dry and some better equipment. I also have a mechanical filter, and a chemical filter. Would changing some of the water and substrate often be good enough for a while? Also should I keep a few more fish with him to be able to have a enough bacteria for filtration? If so which fish? Also, would it be a good idea to get some live rock? Any suggestions would be very helpfull. Thanks in advance

[leebca]

WELCOME to REEFLAND!
Glad you're here and happy to see you posting.

You don't mention the size of the puffer. If it is medium to large, additional fish aren't needed to maintain the biological filter. An undergravel filer is fine. It was the way we did it 35 years ago.

How will you run-in or season the tank? How will it start off? If you are going to kick off the undergravel filter for nitrification, then once that filter is up and running, you want the tank to age a bit longer before the puffer is introduced. Live rock would be optional. But if you want/expect the live rock to be a part of the nitrification process, you'd start with it and let the tank age. With live rock AND the undergravel filter, you may run into a major inconvenience of proper maintenance.

An undergravel filter requires regular maintenance to keep it running properly. With a lot of rock in the aquarium, this may pose a problem. Also, a lot of rock in the aquarium with an undergravel filter will cause some dead spots in the filter (i.e., where water won't flow through it) and thus reduce the effectiveness of the undergravel filter.

Good luck!