sealing a bulkhead, no sump necessary. & Fig. 8 puffer stkg./sel.   12/6/11
Dear Crew,
Greetings and happy holidays!  I've been searching the site for the last couple of hours, but couldn't find anything related to my particular query.
 I have a 40 gallon breeder that I had planned to use as a reef tank, but am now looking at doing brackish or planted setup instead.  The tank is drilled in the bottom panel, in the rear-left corner, but I don't really need to utilize a sump as I'm planning on two Hagen AquaClear's for filtration.  It's been water tested over the last few days using only a ball valve to stop it from draining, but I was looking for more of a long term solution to sealing this unnecessary hole.  Any thoughts?
<Can you not simply seal off this/any drainage holes in the tank, e.g., with small bits of glass and aquarium-grade silicone? Silicone is nice because you can cut it away if needs be, freeing up the holes should you need them down the road.>
Also, in looking into the brackish system, I have developed an interest in Figure 8 puffers, but have read conflicting information re temperament, compatibility, and minimum tank sizes.  If keeping these and bumble bee gobies, how many would be recommended without overloading my tank and causing aggression issues.
<Figure-8s are generally easy to keep. As a base-line stocking density, allow 20 gallons for the first specimen, then another 10 gallons per additional specimen. With good water quality you might be able to keep one or two more. A low salinity is fine, so plants are an option, e.g., SG 1.002-1.003, with appropriate salt-tolerant plants like Vallisneria, hardy Crypts, some of the Crinum species, and so on. They do work well with Bumblebees, but these gobies are fussy feeders, so research that aspect carefully. Figure-8s are territorial but not especially aggressive. They are fin-nippers though, so cannot really be recommended for community tanks. That said, some folks have kept them with pushy, fast-moving tankmates like Orange Chromides, Monos and Scats.>
Thanks for all of the resources you provide,
Dustin
<You're welcome, Neale.>

Pufferfish (again!) Hi Bob, Please accept my apologies for burdening you with yet another Pufferfish question! <Okay> I recently obtained an attractive 30 UK gal tank as a gift and I have chosen to be boring and fill it with brackish puffers as with all my other tanks!  <Nice gift> I have heard from various sources that keeping two puffers together results in one being dominant and bullying the other to death whereas keeping them in a small group would ease the one on one bullying as it has in my 150gal puffer tank. My proposed stocking ideas for my 30 gal is either two figure eights puffers or one green spotted puffer on its own (or if I have any luck, a Ceylon Puffer!) Would it be wiser for me to add 3 figure of eights so its more of a group?  <Yes> Or would it be better to go for just one larger fish such as a Green Spotted rather than keeping several Figure of eights together in a small tank? Many thanks for your advice once again, <Worth trying the group first. Do keep an eye out, perhaps a phone call in to suppliers for "oddball" puffers in their imported shipments... from Africa, Asia... there are very often "contaminants"... not-listed species mixed in... Bob Fenner> Kris

Which Puffer, F8 or GSP?  12/25/04 Hi <Hi, Pufferpunk here> I was thinking of getting a puffer (spotted or figure eight) I would love it if you could give me some tips and guide me to setting up my brackish aquarium, like what size of tank I would need, what kind of substrate, and some things to feed them. And any other thing that you could think of. If you could help it would be awesome <Of course.  2 of my favorite BW species!  Here is a great article on the figure 8 (Tetraodon biocellatus): http://www.aaquaria.com/aquasource/8puffer.shtml & the green spotted puffer (T nigroviridis): http://www.wetwebmedia.com/BrackishSubWebIndex/gspsart.htm  Everything you should need to know is those articles.  Write back with any other questions you may have.  ~PP>