moving from freshwater to brackish help?

[sigaru]

hey i need some help. i have two green spotted puffers [long story, i've told it before but i guess i can tell it again.. in short: never meant to get them. my brother bought them from walmart and a few days later decided he didn't want them, told me i had to take them or he'd flush them down the toilet. have had trouble remoming them in my area to someone who could take proper care of them, so seven or eight months later i've had them in a tank with my pleco, with very low salinity, but a little nonetheless] and i will soon be finally moving them into their own brackish tank so that they may grow properly. may even be brighter colored :] anyway, i need advice on how to convert the water from freshwater to brackish water, as i know i cannot just throw them in there. advice please?

oh, also, if you know of any other hardy fish that might do well with them in a 30g hex tank, let me know :] i've tried this before and i know there is pretty much no chance of actually finding anything to put in there with them [which i'm fine with, just curious], but i could always try again. they'e been in with my six inch alligator pleco for the seven to eight months i've had them, and have never ever bothered to go near him. i don't know if it's either out of fear [perhaps he's asserted himself at some point, or maybe just because he is big?] or out of respect, but even when the food falls near him or he comes over to it they stop going after it and find another piece of food. so i figure something may work lol

 

[Pufferpunk]

No tank mates, considering a 30g is only large enough for a single GSP adult:
http://www.**************.com/forum...cus/an-introduction-to-green-spotted-puffers/
BW Mixing: http://www.**************.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19348

 

[sigaru]

thanks. they're still quite small now, probably because i haven't been able to get them into brackish, but i can move them up when i need to. they get along well for now though..no chasing, no biting, no picking on eachother... but i'm not expecting it to stay that way

 

[Pufferpunk]

Actually with the proper housing, lots of decor breaking up their lines of sight & being brought up together as juvies, you have a good chance of them getting along into adulthood.

Here's my 55g GSP tank:

They were pretty good friends but I wound up re-homing them because the tank wasn't big enough.

 

[sigaru]

aw! i LOVE that tank! soo tacky lol [not to offend you, i just mean all the bright colors]. there are some very bright silk plants at my LFS that i've always liked that i'm going to get to add to their tank. their current one actually looks like the bottom of a pond, no colors at all, but it is very broken up with flower pots and driftwood. but even next to eachother they're good. but like i said, they're still young.

i see you have crushed coral for substrate? that looks very nice.. i think i'd prefer that to sand but my guys like to sleep on the bottom so i think sand would be better for them to sleep in.. oh well :] anyway, thanks for all the help!! i try to do as much research as possible, but the puffers really aren't my area and i know they're yours lol. you helped me out last time i had questions about them, too. though i don't remember what it was..

 

[Pufferpunk]

Yep, tacky & a PITA to keep bleaching all that fake crap! You should see the ridiculous colored gravel in some of my tanks. Too lazy to change it out.

Yes, I used CC in that tank, before I knew better. Aragonite sand is a better choice. Don't go deeper than 1" though.

 

[sigaru]

thanks!! my lfs has lots of sand, so i'll go ask him about the aragonite. hoping to do the change-out on tuesday, so i have some time to get the sand and set up some water to bring from my house [perfect well water] to my boyfriend's [well water with too much mineral deposits, so it has to be softened with that salt crap. i don't use it in my tanks at all]. the puffers will be coming back home with me, but i need water for the community tank.

just curious, why not deeper than an inch? i've never seen mine try to burrow or anything.. do they do this?

 

[Pufferpunk]

Deeper than 1" & the sand has to be stirred thoroughly every week (hard to do with lots of decor), to prevent toxic gas bubbles from forming in the sand.

 

[sigaru]

ah. okay, thanks a bunch. i wouldn't have gone deeper than an inch anyway. just enough to make sure the bottom is thoroughly covered and won't be uncovered by movements. i typically go around half an inch, but i think my bigger tank currently has maybe three-quarters. but my pleco stirs the sand up all the time when he "batmans" [as my boyfriend calls it] across the tank, so i've never had issues. thanks again!!

 

[Pufferpunk]

I'm sure you're pleco will be happy to be out of "salty" water.