The Puffer Forum

I know it's the general consensus that GSP's reach 6 inches maximum, I'm just wondering how often they reach that maximum? Some fish don't often reach their listed max length, is this the case with GSP's? Just curious.

like the growth of any organism, it would depend on genetics, health, and the health of the environment in which it lives
that said, I doubt that many achieve maximum size in captivity due to capture, shipping, storage, several transfers until homed, stress levels, size of tank, quality & quantity of food, water quality, (and in this case, salinity at the right time & levels)................

My friend owns a five inch GSP, but I've heard that GSPs over four inches are rare.

If housed, fed & cared for properly, there is NO reason any fish in captivity wouldn't meet or exceed their wild counterpart's size. They have less disease & better food options.
Here are my 6" GSPs:

I had always felt that there are 2 variants of gsp.. The one that pp have tends to grow larger. The other type where they have bigger and rounder spots tends to not grow beyond 4". At least I have not seen one, yet..

They may be the case as those two don't look much like the ones I've seen in the store?

My 2 monsters look just like the small common GSPs you see in the store, when I bought them.

The ones I see in my stores are distinctly different. Most of the time are those that have bigger and rounder spots. Sometimes they have a mix of your kind. More of a "camo" prints. At around 2inches.

All the same fish. GSPs have different spots, like we have fingerprints.

scpion wrote:The ones I see in my stores are distinctly different. Most of the time are those that have bigger and rounder spots. Sometimes they have a mix of your kind. More of a "camo" prints. At around 2inches.

Cool!

Pufferpunk wrote:

Pufferpunk wrote:All the same fish.

How can you be so certain as to shoot down his observation? Couldn't they be a regional variation?

Oh sure, there can be variants but they're still the same species.