Some General Green Spotted Puffer Questions

[Kayarisha]

Green Spotted Puffers are my all time favorite fish. I walked into a aquarium store in china town in San Fransisco and was in love. Luckily, I have a habit of doing research before I commit to a new pet. I soon learned that I wasn't prepared for a fish with such complicated care.

I've been fish keeping for a couple years now, and I'm generally dissatisfied with my current tank set up. I window shop in stores, and I'm only really interested in a GSP. I'm ready to make the switch. From my research, there's just a couple of questions I have left.

- I see a lot of GSP tanks with driftwood, but I was under the impression that soft water wasn't so good for the little guys. Is some driftwood not a big deal?

- I understand that GSP need more salt as they grow, but as long as it's done correctly (raising the salt level by .002 per week) can young puffers be switched over to a high salt water environment? Or is this bad for the younger puffers?

- It seems like lots of substrates are fine for GSP, but is one particularly better then the others? Is one worse?

- What store bought foods are safe to give GSP? (types of shellfish, clams, ect.)

- I understand that puffers don't play well with others. But is there a type of inexpensive fish that generally doesn't attract to much hate? It would be nice to have a couple of other fish just to break up the empty space, but its fine if not.

- Are there particularly good reviews on certain products? (filters, heaters, ect.)

- Are there any GSP keepers with any advice or tips?



That's all the questions I can think of for now, I'll add more as I can think of them.

 

[johnnytaboo]

I'm going to bump this thread because I too am considering a GSP. I have a 30 gallon that will be opening up soon after I transfer my bichir into my new 55, and I was hoping to try a puffer fish. These are all excellent questions, and I do hope an expert on the subject chimes in soon.
- John

 

[puffykid]

Ya more acidic or softer water isn't good for this species of puffer, slightly basic or harder water of around ph 8 is more ideal. An easy way to do this is to use aragonite sand which will hold it around 8.2. Driftwood isn't ideal for a gsp tank because sw makes it disintegrate.

Yes young gsp's can be converted to marine conditions there is a thread on the puffer forum site where people have successfully kept gsp's as small as about an inch in full marine and there doesn't seem to be any negative effects if you set up the tank as full marine and drip acclimate him over 3-4 hours he will be fine. Otherwise it's smarter to keep him at lower salinity when he's younger to save money on wc's and then slowly raise the salinity .002 a week so that you don't kill off the good bacteria.

As for feeding variety is the answer you'll want hard shelled food for his teeth, which can be snails, clams, mussels, are good other foods he can eat are shrimps, fish, octopus etc as long as you check the package to make sure that the sea food wasn't previously cooked.

For tank mates, it kind of depends on the tank size and the individual puffer, each puffer has a distinct personality and some will allow tank mates and others won't. Another thing that matters for tank mates is what salinity you keep the gsp at, if you put him into a full marine you can try some tank mates if your tank is 40-50g but if you are going to raise the salinity up from brackish there aren't any tank mates that can follow him through the transition

For filters there isn't much to say, a lot of people swear by aquaclear and penguin filters. Over filtration is recommended for the bioload and in general people do 10x the gallons for gph so for a 30g tank you'd want 300gph for a puffer.

My only advice for you is that the bigger the tank the easier the maintenance. If you do the tank minimum any mistake you make in raising the salinity or not doing at least 50% wc matters a lot more. For example if you kept a singleton gsp in a 40g tank you could go easier on the wc's and in general give the puffer a more happy life.