New to GSP's and correcting misinformation.

[Umbrella]

It could also have to do with the area they are found in. It's most likely just an adaptation used to help avoid danger or alert others.

I thought that could be a possibility as well, but HOW different does one have to be before it is considered a different species. Im just kinda thinkin on a big scale here, but I do believe fishes have been here longer than land dwellers, therefore they have had tons more time to diversify. No ?

[Umbrella]

Wow Umb... great pics! My two look like #1, #4 and #5. But I haven't seen mine change their belly color to black. Hmmm.. I thought the black bellies meant they were starving? Maybe I misread something... I could be wrong since my brain is still swirling with new info. Good looking fishies Mine have the pure white shining bellies too. Though yours seem rounder than mine. Maybe I'm not feeding enough? Typically .. again.. going by what Mr. D recommended I've been feeding bloodworms and now snails yesterday. Between the two, I'm feeding a thawed cube per day. Is that sufficient? At what size are they capable of taking on some ghost shrimp? I've got an old beta tank that I'm setting up today to house/hopefully breed their snails and house the ghost shrimp for feeding. I can't do daily trips to lfs for these freebie snails. Mr. D might get irritated at that.. LOL

How big is that Sab?

See! Haha. A black belly can mean he the puffer is sick, scared or trying to blend in/stealth. Which is closer to what mine do, they stealth IMO. #'s 4 + 5 will hover near the floor and kinda cloak their back to match the color of the plants near them. It doesn't mean that they are starving, unless they are emaciated of course. #5 The one who gorges himself is a little more plump than I'd like but I can't really stop him haha, he just steals food from other's mouths, and hes quick about it. #4 is just about right on his plump scale ;D

Feeding 1 bloodworm cube is plenty for just the 2, you are doing good. I feed mine the following in variety. I feed them 1 time per day, 6 days a week and I make sure everyone gets an even share ( cept mr. glutton GSP, he gets less cause he is just going to steal from others anyway ). I usually change up the day they go without food. Frozen bloodworms, Live blackworms, Live Brine Shrimp, Live Ghost Shrimp (who are well fed), occasionally they kill a crab and share it ( which is more like, 'eat as much as you can before its gone' ). They will eat snails if they are small and NOT in a cone shape shell. They ignore crayfish until larger, around 5+ inches, unless your particular puff is a bully, then he might go for a leg or something. I do not feed them Feeder fish or goldfish, as I believe its not good for them and there really is no need with all the other stuff. They will eat dried Plankton, but they would prefer not to. You appear to have one of those worm dispensers if I recall and thats fine. I use a small turkey baster to give specific puffs their share and so I can feed them without touching the worms.

As for feeding them live ghost shrimp, I have found that unless you pretty much SHOW the puffs you are feeding them shrimps, they will not see them. They can't focus on them long enough to attack and succeed, but they are pretty good at re-locating the shrimp again and chasing it. If the shrimp are not shown to the puffers as food, they will most likely not see them or ignore them ( cause they have no idea they are edible yet lol ). Which means you might have to cripple ( not kill )a ghostie to get the puffs interested If you kill it and they don't see it moving, they might not go for it. They will however attack an injured one pretty fast.

For getting snails and ghosties to breed, I usually go on like a Sunday to 3 different LFS's. I ask each to get me a few snails from their tanks so that I can breed them. Usually they do it ( if there are snails present in their tanks ) and its free. I purchase 15 Ghost shrimps for $2.95. I keep them in a 10 G tank and so far it has produced just a few extras of each, but every little bit helps Just make sure your little breeding tank has aeration. And watch those ghosties carefully ! I had some behemoth ones that were like 2 inches almost. Some of my puffs couldn't even figure out how to go about eating them haha. And those monster shrimps actually picked snails up and carried them off.

And lastly - The Saba is a 6 incher , hes pimp.

[HillbillyHvn]

Well so far, I haven't seen a black belly on either of them. My crackhead daughter named them Ren and Stimpy... *sigh* She's incorrigible.. I'll tell ya!

I don't have a worm feeder... I've been thawing them in a little plastic bowl with tank water. Then drain the tank water once everything is thawed and finger feeding them both a little at a time. They love to eat! How do you feed an actual live blackworm? Just drop it in and let them nibble on it? I thought about getting some frozen krill for them too from Mr. D. The snails I've been getting for them are the little round plant snails. Mr. D was more than happy to give them to me. I have malaysian trumpet snails in the lab tank... they love those... but I read here that the puffs don't.

I'm trying to find someplace online where I can order silk plants in bulk for the 55 gal tank. I know I'm going to have to have a ton for it. The three in this little tank is not near enough so I know I'm going to need way more for the big one.

Shopping list for tomorrow:
SW Test kit
salinity measuring thing.. (I can't remember what it's called)
Marine salt - Instant Ocean?
Heater for 55gal
Blackworms
Frozen Krill - The dried ones stink to high heaven.. I hope these are better
Ghost Shrimp
More snails

Saba is awesome.. little porker

[crazedpuffer]

Yeah thats how you feed them BW. You can't touch them otherwise you can get some form of hypothermia. Frozen krill is good but shouldn't be a staple, it may lead to lockjaw. Also many people are fine with giving there puffers MTS snails its just a precautionary thing.

salinity measuring thing is called a hydrometer
Also any brand of Salt is fine, I use coral life but many here use instant ocean.

[Agnate]

Make sure your Hydrometer measures all the way to 1.000 SG. You should maybe try putting some Java Fern into the tank and see how it does. Just make sure you tie it to a porous rock or piece of drift wood, and you can probably find some cheap stuff (silk plants) if your city has a community forum for selling things (or maybe even an aquarium club of sorts). Make sure to check Ebay, too!

[HillbillyHvn]

Yeah thats how you feed them BW. You can't touch them otherwise you can get some form of hypothermia. Frozen krill is good but shouldn't be a staple, it may lead to lockjaw. Also many people are fine with giving there puffers MTS snails its just a precautionary thing.

salinity measuring thing is called a hydrometer
Also any brand of Salt is fine, I use coral life but many here use instant ocean.

Lockjaw ... no kidding? Maybe I should just avoid that. I'm just thinking of things that could vary their diet.
Hydrometer.. got it. Thx

Make sure your Hydrometer measures all the way to 1.000 SG. You should maybe try putting some Java Fern into the tank and see how it does. Just make sure you tie it to a porous rock or piece of drift wood, and you can probably find some cheap stuff (silk plants) if your city has a community forum for selling things (or maybe even an aquarium club of sorts). Make sure to check Ebay, too!

Is there a way to calibrate it? I've been checking some of our local trade forums for them. Fixing to post. Gotta love freecycle Ebay may be my next step.

Thanks!

[crazedpuffer]

All you do is rince it in water to calibrate it. I use Instant Ocean kind, the best and most accurate IME.

[Umbrella]

Well so far, I haven't seen a black belly on either of them. My crackhead daughter named them Ren and Stimpy... *sigh* She's incorrigible.. I'll tell ya!

I don't have a worm feeder... I've been thawing them in a little plastic bowl with tank water. Then drain the tank water once everything is thawed and finger feeding them both a little at a time. They love to eat! How do you feed an actual live blackworm? Just drop it in and let them nibble on it? I thought about getting some frozen krill for them too from Mr. D. The snails I've been getting for them are the little round plant snails. Mr. D was more than happy to give them to me. I have malaysian trumpet snails in the lab tank... they love those... but I read here that the puffs don't.

I'm trying to find someplace online where I can order silk plants in bulk for the 55 gal tank. I know I'm going to have to have a ton for it. The three in this little tank is not near enough so I know I'm going to need way more for the big one.

Shopping list for tomorrow:
SW Test kit
salinity measuring thing.. (I can't remember what it's called)
Marine salt - Instant Ocean?
Heater for 55gal
Blackworms
Frozen Krill - The dried ones stink to high heaven.. I hope these are better
Ghost Shrimp
More snails

Saba is awesome.. little porker

Haha Ren and Stimpy. My bad on the worm feeder mistake lol, but uh.. I dunno why I thought ya had one. You can thaw and feed them, thats fine. Some people prefer not to actually 'touch' the worms.. just so they are clean etc..
I use a small turkey baster to suck up the live black worms ( and so I don't have to touch them ) Then I squirt a few near whichever Puff I am feeding. Dropping them in works fine too, just don't do too many in one shot... they are worms and they are alive.. so they will try to escape into the substrate where they will eventually die. Make sure the puffs get em all.

As for the snails, it is not so much that they refuse to eat the cone/trumpet snails, but rather you run the risk of choking your Puff. >.<

Um and one more thing you may or may not choose to do... but if I were you.. I'd skip the Krill and go with live brine shrimp if ya can. I never tried Krill frozen or dried but they may not like it.
Good luck !

-UMB

[Myaj]

You can't really calibrate a hydrometer. What you can do is fill it up with RO or distilled water and make sure it reads 1.000. If it doesn't, you know it is off by a bit and then you'll have to compensate when taking your actual readings of the brackish water. There's a few different kinds of hydrometers, the swing arm (really cheap and common) type and the floating glass type. The floating glass type is generally a little more accurate.

A refractometer is much more accurate than either though, and you can calibrate it. But they are more expensive. I have on only because I use it for so many things around the house, saltwater tanks, brackish tanks and my beer/mead making.

I'd skip the krill too, there's a lot of other things you can feed them (check the library for an article about it). I don't give my puffers MTS snails other than my big burrfish, she can chomp through them no problem. Other puffers might or might not be able to eat them, but the risk is in them breaking a tooth when they try to bite that super hard shell. A badly broken tooth can lead to eating problems, infection, etc. So most of us don't risk it.

To feed live blackworms, I usually just dip a toothpick in the container, get some worms on it and dip it into the tank. That's if I only want to feed a small amount. If I want to feed a large amount, I dump them into a net, rinse with cold water (I use the brita filter out of the sink), then dip the net into the tank. I don't know if you know how to care for live blackworms, but what I do is dump my entire container once a day into a net, rinse with the cold water, then put them back in the container with more of the cold water, and store in the fridge. This washes away any dead or decaying worms, and keeps the living ones fresher/cleaner. Just don't dump your container.. your family probably won't like live worms squiggling all over your fridge and food!

As far as the bellies.. my simple theory is the ones that were captured younger don't have nearly as much experience of being in the wild, and therefor don't respond to danger or threatening situations as quickly or drastically as their older, more experienced relatives do. I mean, if they've never had to hide from predators, if all they ever have really known was this big blob that brings them food, why should they hide? The older ones though, that grew up a bit in the wild, and experienced having to hide and blend in, they will be quicker to hide from signs of danger.

[Umbrella]

As far as the bellies.. my simple theory is the ones that were captured younger don't have nearly as much experience of being in the wild, and therefor don't respond to danger or threatening situations as quickly or drastically as their older, more experienced relatives do. I mean, if they've never had to hide from predators, if all they ever have really known was this big blob that brings them food, why should they hide? The older ones though, that grew up a bit in the wild, and experienced having to hide and blend in, they will be quicker to hide from signs of danger.

That would be a perfectly acceptable answer for me except for one small detail.
You suggested that the young ones are possibly in-experienced. Thats probably 100% dead on right BUT this is the problem with that:

I have a total of 7 GSP's in 3 seperate tanks and they are as follows:

x2 Young ( 1 - 1.5 inches ) - These guys CAN change belly color black. No spines visible.

x4 Medium ( 2 - 3 inches ) - These guys I honestly believe can NOT change their bellies color. (period). Like.. they just can't do it. They lost that ability or never gained it. AND the spines are clearly visible on their bellies. I seriously believe that if I took one of the above mentioned (medium ones) and purposely put him in terrible conditions.. his belly would not change.. cause I don't think he can. Of course... I would never do that to any of my puffs. I'm just using it to make my point.

x1 Old ( 5 - 6 inches) - These guys are just like the young ones. CAN change belly and spines are not visible.

I totally agree on the whole 'coming from different locations' thing but I also think there may be more to this that just morphology, mutations and adaptations. I kinda thought that thats how we wound up with such a diverse animal world, was through those processes. Through slight changes over time. Well... after ' X ' amount of time passes, they would look considerably different wouldn't you agree ? Is that not how we got the variety of species we have today ?

So maybe someone could help me answer this question:

How different do 2 animals have to be before they are considered two different species ?

[Jase]

Darwin said something about that... I can't remember what...
...something about finches. dangit!

[Umbrella]

Darwin said something about that... I can't remember what...
...something about finches. dangit!

LOL! Here I am all excited to get a reply fast haha, and here you are being silly !

I <3 it !

But yea - you get my point

[Jase]

ya, I gotcha

[HillbillyHvn]

Awesome info... thank you so much **mental note to skip the krill** I sure don't want either one to break a tooth so I'll stick with the pond type snails. I hope these are prolific breeders as my guys are tearing them up. I can't wait to get them in the bigger tank... it's going to be so great for them!

Next dumb question... tank mates that will handle bw going to eventual sw conditions? Of course this is for the 55 gal... LOL

and

Substrate for the 55 gal? Sand? crushed coral to keep the ph up? I've got crushed coral in the filter of this little tank which is doing great for the ph. ( I use it in my cichlid tank too)

[Pufferpunk]

Worm cone feeder: http://www.fish.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=710125

Like I said before, I suggest getting those 3 GSPs into the larger tank, ASAP. Anything is better than cycling that 10g with them in it. There are 2 kinds of Bio-Spira, FW & SW. FW B-S is made to be used in FW. Just like our biological bacteria dies when we raise our SG too quickly, dosing a tank w/FW B-S will kill off a great deal of it. Acclimate them back to a SG close to 1.002 & add B-S to the larger tank (IF you can purchase from a reputable dealer, like http://www.drsfostersmith.com). In the meantime, they'll be much better off in the larger tank.