welcome to the site
you know that Green Spotted Puffers are Brackish fish. thats a good place to start. although they are sold in fresh water, they dont last long if kept in FW. they need salt, normally half strenth sea water, but need higher levels as they age. i have mine in full marine.
you will need to either buy pre mixed salt water from your LFS, or buy salt and mix it yourself. you will also need a 'Hydrometer' or a 'Recfractometer' (even better). we use these for mesuring the amount of salt in the water, to help us keep the levels of salt consistant in the aquarium.
when you start to work with salt in aquaria, you need a scale to work from. there are 2 ways to measure salt levels, they can be writen as:
a percentage (salinity)- basically salt makes up 10% of this water, or 33% ect.
or as Specific Gravity (SG). SG is basically the weight of the water.
you will see readings such as 1.005 and 1.025, this is the weight of 1 liter of water... salt water is heavier than fresh, so a liter of fresh water weighs 1,000 grams, but a liter of sea water will weigh 1,022-1,026 grams. so marine aquariums have an SG of 1.022-1.026 on the hydrometer/refractometer. so your puffer will need an SG of around 1.010 or water with a 15% salinity... you still following me?
i can be confusing, i was like
for a while after i went brackish, but you get used to it...
you will need to become familiar with 'Drip Aclimatisation'.you cant just float brackish fish in the bag like FW fish. they need to be introduced slowly using this method. Google it. its good to know about.
anyway... puffer fish generally prefer clean, well filtered water, and GSP's are no exeption. they are very messy fish, and require 30 gallons minimum as adults. and also require frequent water changes to keep waste levels down... i do 25% every week.
puffers also need a special diet of hard shelled foods. they have teeth like rodents that constantly grow. the hard food items help wear their teeth down. things such as snails the size of your puffers eye, mussles (when older), and prawns with the shell on are all good choices. as well as crickets and other insects.
they are really inteligent too. if they pace up and down the glass all day they are bored, and need some things to investigate in the aquarium. they like an aquarium with broken lines of sight. it keeps them occupied. many puffer keepers move the decor in the tank around every so ofton to avoid this.
they normally dont like tankmates either, as puffers can get nippy. thats not to say that you cant have tankmates, just dont get too attached, as they may not be there when you get in.
wow... i thinks thats the basics...
if you need any more help just post again. we will do our best to help you here. people on MFK like pics too... just a hint.
-Sam
