My lfs is awfull so i normally drive to the next town to get my fish. I was in the Awfull one to get crickets for my lizzard when i noticed they had set up a brackish water section. In one of the tanks was the most adorable puffer i had ever seen. I was a 1 inch fig 8. It was the helthiest fish i had ever seen in that stoor. I asked a worker what sg the tank was at And he stared at me like i was crazy. So i said how much salt is in the tank? He said oh we just put in some chichlid salt and use crushed coral for substrate. I was amazed that the puffer was alright but i cat say the same for the killfish and celebes rainbows in there. Right now my tank is almost cycled and i was planing to get fig 8 puffers. Should i get this fish even though all the other fish ive gotten there die within a couple of days and other fish thrive?
Figure 8 puffer
- Thread starter fishgal 8
- Start date
I would not recommend it because if u go to walmart u will see that the puffers ther look perfectly healthy even though ther healthy but if u watch long enough they will slowly deteriorate and die and if u want to get the puffer u half to be willing to expose the possibly diseased puffer to other fish and risk hurting them. Also before i knew about brackish last year i bought a puffer from walmart and put him in fresh water and he nearly ate every fin on my killi then got a disease from being in fresh and killed every one of my fish in my large african aquarium and died a week later. It even got my favorite elephant nose ] = .
WOW that stinks but i seemes that this puffer is doing well, judjing by the way that it swims and demolishes the apple snails before they die of the salinity. btw is chiclid salt fw or sw salt?????? My stocking sckeme for this tank was going to include fid 8's, orange chromides and BBG's. Could i add this puffer first and wate a month or to to see if it does well than ad the other fish? or is this a bad idea
Since there are no other fish in the tank right now, you could in essence use it as a QT for the puffer. Give it a month in there & be prepare to treat it for IPs & other problems.
My only issue is you say the tank is almost cycled. What does that mean? How are you cycling it?
The salt they are using is the incorrect salt. It's basically in FW. What you could do is a 90% WC & add Tetra's Safestart to boost the bacteria in the already seeded filter & then add the puffer immediately. How big is the tank?
http://www.**************.com/forum/library/puffers-in-focus/fig8/
My only issue is you say the tank is almost cycled. What does that mean? How are you cycling it?
The salt they are using is the incorrect salt. It's basically in FW. What you could do is a 90% WC & add Tetra's Safestart to boost the bacteria in the already seeded filter & then add the puffer immediately. How big is the tank?
http://www.**************.com/forum/library/puffers-in-focus/fig8/
You're gambling on the fin nipping issue.. The Figure 8 I've got minds it's own business.. It likes to chase/eat Ghost shrimp, snails and frozen Mysis Shrimp. Give the little fella a chance!
35 gal tank, and btw the puffer is still looking good. About the cycling i got a molly from my lfs and sience it was in fw started my tank in that. I slowly raised the sg to about 1.005. the nitrate is still a bit high so im doing alot of water changes today it was 0 so im abot done cycling it and will return the molly. it stinks that the puffers in fw because i could have easily kept my tank water at fw. Funny that they started a bw section thats not actuly bw.
i will eventuly keep it in bw because if ididnt it would mess up the plan i had for this tank but sience its now in fw does that meen i have to make my tank 1.000 agian or can i keep it at 1.005 and drip acumulate it to my water chemistry outside the tank. I checked and atleast they got the PH right.
Always good to check your spelling & punctuation before you hit Reply. 
You can easily drip-acclimate your puffer to the BW. 99% of all BW fish are sold in FW at the stores. Don't worry about the pH. You can add a bag of aragonite or crushed coral to your filter or even better--change the substrate to this.
As far as cycling with that molly. This is not cycling a tank at all. All you have done is to create enough bacteria to support the single molly. This is nothing compared to the bioload of the puffer.
Read & learn: http://www.**************.com/forum/library/category/water-filtration/
You can easily drip-acclimate your puffer to the BW. 99% of all BW fish are sold in FW at the stores. Don't worry about the pH. You can add a bag of aragonite or crushed coral to your filter or even better--change the substrate to this.
As far as cycling with that molly. This is not cycling a tank at all. All you have done is to create enough bacteria to support the single molly. This is nothing compared to the bioload of the puffer.
Read & learn: http://www.**************.com/forum/library/category/water-filtration/