General Green Spotted Puffer Guide

[phlawed]

I get alot of pm's on caring for my gsp so i threw this together real fast on how i have handled mine for the most part. if anyone thinks anything should be added feel free to give me some insight on it.

1. ONLY 1 per tank or dont be suprised if you end up with missing or damaged fish. Fishmates are hard to come by as they are very agressive, they just wear a sweet face. Fish mates are possible and even multiple GSP's. But, be prepared to offer all tankmates PLENTY of space of their own. In other words are 55+g aquarium.

2. A green spotted puffer (aka GSP) is a brackish fish. They are spawned in freshwater but move into brackwater conditions and eventually even marine conditions

3. territorial, as they grow they will become territorial and they do fight to the death

4. feeding: every other day brine shrimp, bloodworms, freeze dried shrimp, ghost shrimp(can survive in water up to 1.010 in my experience)- snails once a week or every other week to keep teeth trimmed down. There are other foods, this is just what i have used. They need the shells to trim their teeth or they will grow so much that they cant eat at all and die. Dont use flake food as this is not part of their diet and is not suitable. Dont be scared of the big belly they get after feeding it is normal.

5. keeping them occupied - they love to explore their terrain. Stacking rocks very high on the rear of the tank with lots of caves and tunnels usually does the trick.

6. Use marine salt not aquarium salt. Marine salt is a must as aquarium salt is not ment for brackish or marine fish to live in but as more as a medice for freshwater fish.

7. Puffers are very shy during their first few weeks in a new enviroment. Do not pressure them to come out if they dont want to. Eventually they recognize you and show you all the personality you could ever ask for in a fish. Just give them time.

8. Acclimate them to salinity slowly. raising the water .002 every week is how i did mine. He is now in 1.021 full marine conditions. (slow acclimation helps keep bacteria alive as freshwater bacteria differs from brack, brack differs from marine). If you already have a tank cycled at a higher salinity, then you can acclimate much faster using a drip method in just a few hours (nmonks).

9. water temp of 78 while in freshwater-brackwater 80 once in brackwater

10. minimum tank of 20g up to 3" adults will need a 30+g tank (nmonks)

11. Heavy filtration. Puffers are messy eaters and often food settles to the bottom. I have a 20g tank with a 55g filter on it. 25-50% water changes weekly with syphon is a must.

nmonks has provided some more info on following post in some more detail

 

[nmonks]

Looks pretty good. Well done.

As far as formatting go, perhaps you could add spaces between each numbered item, and perhaps "bold" the key punchline, e.g.:

10. Minimum tank of 20g up to 3"; adults will need a 30+g tank

Personally, I don't believe these fish need marine conditions as adults, although certainly high-end brackish (1.010 upwards) is highly recommened. There's no evidence that these fish inhabit the sea, and in the wild they are essentially estuarine fish that live in places where the salinity fluctuates. The ideal aquarium would have a salinity that went up and down all the time. Since we can't do this (it would stress the filter bacteria) we need to pick a "happy medium".

From everything I've read, something around 1.012 to 1.015 works fine for these species. That would certainly match other high-end brackish fish, like scats and monos, that certainly don't need marine conditions, but do prefer a fairly high-end brackish.

Acclimating brackish water fish to higher or lower salinities can actually be done very quickly, at least with adult fish. Certainly no more than a few hours to go from fresh to fully marine. These fish have evolved to handle this. Schaefer mentions being able to place scats taken from freshwater and putting them into seawater. I personally wouldn't go that far, but I've easily adapted fish from fresh to salt in 2 hours.

Having said that, your filter bacteria cannot be adjusted this quickly, so your advice is good. But it's important to understand why we change the salinity in brackish tanks slowly: for the bacteria, not the fish.

I agree 100% on giving puffers plenty to do. I cannot believe that more books and magazines don't talk about this. It seems essential to me.

I simply wouldn't mention freshwater at all: these puffers should be kept in at least slightly-salty conditions (SG 1.003) even as babies, simply to make sure the pH and hardness are appropriate.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[phlawed]

nmonks, I went ahead and updated it today and added some info by you. Thanks for your help. Any other input from experience welcome.

 

[vancouver]

Glad I found this.. saw some gsps at the lfs and was really interested in them..

 

[phlawed]

Thank you for responses. Feel free to add any info that you may have from personal experiences and will update accordingly.

 

[phlawed]

long awaited bump haha

 

[kanzaris]

I had my GSP for about 2 ½ years now; he is in a 150 gal tank with Monos, Archers a Jade Goby and my Cat Sharks. So far he has not nipped any fins but he tries his luck with the Cat Sharks. I used to feed him snails when he was younger but for the last year I have not feed him any. He keeps his teeth trim by munching on some shells and barnacles I have got in the tank.

Sabby

 

[Marine/Freshwater?]

In you sig it says you have your puffer in with a G tile in a 20 gallon. My biggest G tile ate a 6 and a half inch Spotted Seatrout. They have no problem inhaling a small GSP. Gsps are also a tad bit agressive to be housed with a moray. Morays are highly predatory but they are very docile and can get beat on pretty easily. Also a G tile needs like a 50 gallon tank. Your tips regarding the GSPs are good though.

 

[phlawed]

In you sig it says you have your puffer in with a G tile in a 20 gallon. My biggest G tile ate a 6 and a half inch Spotted Seatrout. They have no problem inhaling a small GSP. Gsps are also a tad bit agressive to be housed with a moray. Morays are highly predatory but they are very docile and can get beat on pretty easily. Also a G tile needs like a 50 gallon tank. Your tips regarding the GSPs are good though.

they were babies or kids during that time. they were seperated about at their 1 year mark but got along pretty well even as both were maturing. GSP stayed to the left and G tile lived in the rocks on the right.