The Puffer Forum

Set up a 33 gallon tank 4 weeks ago for a gsp and is now fully cycled .Last week sg was at 1.005 and today it's at 1.011. Ive been increasing it on a daily basis and checking water params twicw a day. So far he looks super happy in there and his colors are more intense. Got him from a freshwater setup.
I find that increasing it by .002 by week is a bit too low since these fish can handle larger fluctuation in sg. As long as ammo,nitrite stay at 0,i don't see why you can't increase it by .002 per day. Been doing it for a week now and nothing has changed.

here are a few pics.

It's not the fish that can't handle it, it's the bacteria. It cannot adjust to a quick change of SG & the system will crash. If you want to go straight marine, then do that. Get sand & live rock from a well-established tank & add a protein skimmer.

+1. Quickest way to cause a tank crash. Keep a very close eye on the tank. You can drip acclimate a fish in a few hours, not a tank

If ammo and nitrite remain at 0 throughout this whole process, how can the tank crash?

We only recommend to keep an close eye on the parameters. Although--if the tank does crash, it can cause permanent damage to your fish & there is no way to build up bacteria in mid-salinity raise.

1st timer wrote:If ammo and nitrite remain at 0 throughout this whole process, how can the tank crash?

Small fish big tank, dilution is your friend here. Push the salinity too far and all the bacteria will die, this leaves you with an uncycled tank with a bio-load. Bad news. Hold where you are and allow the tank to catch up. No need to rush things like this. Or set up with established live rock and drip acclimate your puffer. All may seem good for now but you are setting yourself up for a disaster. Take your time

Well,the sg is at 1.022-23 and ammonia nitrite levels are at 0. I guess it helped that my tank has very low bioload.Won't be increasing it anymore. Been feeding him every 2-3 days.
Will be adding some live rock to seed the rocks i already have in there.