Completley new to owning Puffer fish, help might be needed!

[luna1580]

hey, i just wanted to add that if you ever have a tank crisis like a leak -or something like this where you need 30g/fish not 3g/fish quickly- rubbermaid bins like the one below can be used as temp tanks, and or hospital/quarantine tanks. just rinse them, set on a flat area of your floor, and fill (just not to the very top, of course).

they can be picked up cheaply at any walmart or home depot type store (farm supply-type stores also usually have things from storage bins through cattle troughs that can all be DIY tanks). i've used clear rubbermaids for up to 40gs in a turtle emergency -they will not melt if you suction on a heater and you can add filters to most just like a tank (you might need to alter the bin lip with a utility knife for some HOBs). many aquatic turt keepers make such systems permanent, but for fish we want crystal-clear tank walls for viewing (i like that for my turts too).

so anyway, if you can't find a good cheap 30/55/75 tank tomorrow you can use a big storage bin with heater & filter until you do. imho, much better to spend 15 bucks on a bin and then a few weeks finding a really great tank, than to pay a ton for the same size tank tank tomorrow because you're in a panic to move those fish out of the 3 gallon....

to be water-safe a bin need not be rubbermaid brand, but should have thick, smooth plastic walls that are NOT at all brittle. a rubbermaid roughneck-type plastic texture that bends without cracking (try it empty with your hands on the lip if unsure) may bow a bit when filled within a few inches of the top, but will not leak or break - i can't vouch for the more brittle-type clear bins of some other brands, but they seem very prone to cracking if dropped or smacked even when empty of water, i'd not trust them not to have a side bust out after filling them!

[luna1580]

p.s.

how big are the 2 puffs you have? from the mouth to where the tail-fin starts are they 2" or 4-5"? this will determine how much water they need ASAP, of course plan to buy the biggest appropriate tank you can find based on their full potential size of around six inches each (assuming you keep both).

and the following is not directed in bad faith at you, i've bought fish from big-chain-pet-stores for pets and fish from big-chain groceries for dinner that were very probably not responsibly sourced (and sold, in the case of pet stores giving accurate keeping info on fish....). we all have. -at some point we didn't even think about this stuff, and i wish there were more efforts to educate the general public about both buying pets and seafood.....

but we all need to realize for the future that we are not really "saving" puffers when we buy them from ill-informed/poor-keeping-policy stores like walmart.

sure, you did probably save the life of the individual fish you just bought (assuming you do good research like newpuffmommy here and learn that your new pet needs way different keeping than you thought/were told by the seller....) BUT simple supply-and-demand economics: if people keep buying walmart puffers walmart isn't going to care that the motivation driving sales is a combo of "fish rescue", misleading sales info, and pure cuteness. walmart only cares to make a profit: if they can sell 10 puffers a week they are going to order 10 more for next week and on and on forever. so if they actually see increased sales because people desire to "save" the fish they see from the awful way walmart is keeping them, it will make walmart stock more puffers and more of them will die.

many will die in the process of catching them from the wild and shipping them internationally for sale (and the by-catch of other critters that die when accidentally caught with them), some will die in the walmarts and other stores that don't keep them in appropriate ways, and some more will die in the homes of people who bought them and really wanted to give them good care, but were totally mis-informed about their needs by the store selling them.

ultimately if we want walmart to stop selling puffers we need to stop buying them. no demand means they will stop stocking the fish, as to do so would be a waste of money for them. this is the only way to "fix" the walmart-puffer-problem as a whole.

[Pufferpunk]

Excellent posts, thank you!

[greenspottedlover]

"as a matter of fact I normally am not much of a fish person"

I was more of an amphibian person till I saw my first GSP, but did keep a couple freshwater tanks before then.

One thing I should ask you about is your filter. What filter are getting? Some filter such as Aquaclear and Marineland are in my opinion great, where as some such as tetra are not.(Tetra's reptifilters are o.k, not for fish though )

[greenspottedlover]

Also get a filter suggested to a larger tank. I do because puffers produce a lot of waste, plus its usually never a bad idea.

[luna1580]

newpuffmom-

how's it going?

are you and your wet pets all okay for now?

wishing y'all the best.

-l