My Un-Answered Question..

[NeverEnoughWater]

We recently just got into puffers about a month and a half ago. Thats about when we purchased a GSP from walmart and kept it in our planted tank. Over time he ended up clearing out almost all of our snails, and he was loving it. We had him for about 3 weeks, until we had to move him out because of a cichlid pregnacy, we had purchased a small tank from wal-mart and put him in it.

He seemed fine at first but over a week span he started developing small whiteish/red bumps on his body, almost pimple like, we tried like hell to save him but he got really skinny and weak and passed on. When we purchased him he was in a freshwater tank so thatsgs what he went into at home. When we asked for advice on a different forum we were told to add salt, and that was the reason he was dieing. Are some GSP's able to live in fully freshwater conditions? And can someone please tell me what the whiteish/red bumps were?

[trekenk]

GSP puffers do better in brackish and as they get bigger can go to full marine. They also require 30 gallon of tank each as they get to be the size of nerf footballs. How big was the tank you move him to and was this tank cycled. It is important to have a cycled tank for your puffer as they are very sensitive to ammonia and nitrates. As far as the bumps go not quite sure on that one maybe someone else has some ideas.
Great GSP article in the library.

Welcome to the Puffer forum great place for answers.

[Pufferpunk]

Start your GSP education by reading the article on them in our Library. Then please read the cycling articles & feeding articles. Great info on here in in our Library.

[Idontknow]

The bumps could have been ich.

Sorry to hear about your GSP

[Agnate]

Aye, it sounds like the GSP was moved into an uncycled tank (or only a partially cycled one), and its condition slowly degraded from there.

If he was doing fine in freshwater when you first got him and was still relatively small (less than 2 inches), I highly doubt it was the freshwater. Honestly, if someone told you to make the tank brackish (by adding marine salt) and DIDN'T tell you that this addition of salt (depending on the amount added) would likely disrupt the beneficial bacteria that keeps toxins at minimal amounts, then that person wasn't being very responsible.

While GSPs prefer brackish and marine conditions (and should be given these conditions), it's much more important to have a stable aquarium environment to ensure that they aren't poisoned by toxins (ammonia and nitrite) that are present in uncycled/unestablished aquariums.

I'm sorry to hear of your loss, as it's always sad to see these little guys go.

Like others have advised, read up on the Nitrogen cycle of an aquarium and what it means to have a "cycled" aquarium. If you're looking to get another GSP, you'll be considerably more prepared. If you're looking for a freshwater puffer, I would highly suggest AGAINST a GSP. There are plenty of freshwater puffer alternatives, but almost-all puffers require that they're in a tank by themselves, as they're quite aggressive and mean when they're healthy and hungry.

[NeverEnoughWater]

Thanks Everyone. I have read some of the articles in the Library, and after the little guy passed we did a massive amount of research and now have some more but this time in brackish water with all the right conditions. They're in a smaller tank right now but were doing some tank rearanging and they'll soon be in a bigger one. We did let the tank cycle, maybe not as long as we should have since it was a brand-new-out-of-the-box tank. Research is the key though.

[Pufferpunk]

There is no such thing as "letting" a tank cycle. What was your process for this?