Questions about F8's...

[VampireHeart82]

I just took in two F8 puffers from a friends friend because they bought them without researching first and decided that they didn't want them after letting two others die(yes they had four of them in a ten gal!). My question is, I have a 55gal brackish tank with one dragon goby(8") two purple spotted gudgeons(3" at the moment) 2 knight gobies two fiddler crabs and a few(about platy's. Would the F8's be ok in there with my others or not? Right now I am slowly adapting them to brackish water so they are in the 10gal still that they came in. They are both barely an inch long at the moment. Would they be ok in my 55 or should I buy them their own 30gal? How aggressive are they usually? How quickly do they grow? I know my gudgeons will eat anything small once they are bigger but they are still to small at the moment but I know I don't want to leave the F8's in the ten gal so if they need their own tank would they at least be ok in my 55 till a new tank is cycled? Any info would be much appreciated. I have two other tanks but they are both not possibilities for a home as they are a 55gal amazon stream tetra set up and a 55gal with two 4-5 inch GSPs that I have started slowly converting to marine.

[Pufferpunk]

They should be fine. Nice combo, as long as the gudgeons can't eat them.

[VampireHeart82]

No, they can't. They (the gudgeons) are about 3" long at the moment. The same size as my knight gobies. I don't think that one of the puffers will make it though. It's extremely emaciated and is just curled up in a little ball in the corner. I feel the only way to save him is to get him into brackish water quick but I am not sure on how quickly I can switch them though. They have a drip into the ten gal they are in right now and the other one ate some frozen bloodworms that I thawed earlier but the little guy in corner isn't moving or eating. Any tips on anything else I can do for him?

[Iliveinazoo]

The crabs won't survive, but they should have their own dedicated set-up anyway

[VampireHeart82]

They do in a way. I have a homemade set up on top of my aquarium that they spend most of their time in. It's lit has sand and all of that fun stuff. They climb out of my tank into it by a tunnel I have for them and some rocks. I also have an underwater island for them that's really cool. They are doing great right now but I was wondering what the long term effect would be. Both of my crabs backs(shells) are about 2" in diameter they are pretty big I have had them for a long time and don't want anything happening to them.

[VampireHeart82]

The sick puffer died early this morning. its sad but I did what I could. The other tiny guy is now in my 55 and is doing much better. He isn't even an inch long yet and looks so tiny compared to my other fish. Even my plates are twice as big as him! I have been keeping a close eye on him though to make sure everything's ok. He has had quite a time eating the little snails that are all over in there! My water sg is 1.005. I have kept it light and and wondering if I should raise it some. My Gudgeons do not like heavy brackish though so any info would be nice thanks!

[sevenyearnight]

That is the recommended SG

[Arny]

They do in a way. I have a homemade set up on top of my aquarium that they spend most of their time in. It's lit has sand and all of that fun stuff. They climb out of my tank into it by a tunnel I have for them and some rocks. I also have an underwater island for them that's really cool.

Hey this sounds really cool, can you show some pix/vids of this please

[Pufferpunk]

My concern is you bought those 2 together & 1 died from some sort of disease, then you place the other one into hour healthy tank.

[VampireHeart82]

I didn't buy them. They were given to me buy a guy who thought they would be cool to have. He bought 4 of them and had them in a 10 gal freshwater tank. He said he had had them for about 2 1/2 months. They started dying after about a month he said. He had them in freshwater and was feeding them the fish flakes walmart sells. The two that were alive when I got them looked to me like they hadn't eaten in a while. I don't think they were sick I think they were dying from the poor care they were given. I don't know much about F8s but my GSPs will not eat flake food unless it's inside of a ghost shrimp. The guy that is still alive now looks much better and is acting normally. He was really sluggish when I got him. Now he is swimming around investigating everything and has a little round tummy from the bloodworms and brine shrimp he has been fed as well as a large amount of the little snails that had infested my tank.

That's good to know about my water being right for the F8. As I said before I don't know as much about F8s as the other fish I have. I tend to research first then buy. I had researched a few months ago and got help from this site but I then ended up getting the GSPs instead of the F8s because none of the locally owned shops had them so now I have had to refresh my memory by researching again.

I am not sure what I am going to do with my fiddler crabs at the moment. They were originally bought with intentions of feeding them to my GSPs and were just in my other tank till it was time to give another to them but during that wait I ended up getting attached to them. So we have been getting different ones to feed them. I may get them their own tank if they could end up F8 food though. At the moment they are about 3-4 times bigger than the puffer though and he is preoccupied by all of the snails. None of my other fish have ever paid any mind to them and they seem happy. They love to eat crickets and such.

I have been trying to figure out how to upload pics with my iPhone but I haven't been successful yet. I would love to be able to post pics of all of my set ups!!!

[Pufferpunk]

Even though you didn't buy them, they could have been carrying disease (specifically IPs), for a long time & now could be passing it onto your other fish.

[Salmon]

I have been trying to figure out how to upload pics with my iPhone but I haven't been successful yet. I would love to be able to post pics of all of my set ups!!!

Plug your iPhone into your computer and copy the photos onto the computer and upload them with your computer. that would be the way to do it. Or what I do is take photos with my phone, email them to myself and upload them onto the computer. Just a couple of suggestions

[VampireHeart82]

I don't have a computer. Just my iPhone so I would need another way to do it.

I didnt think he would need to be separated any longer just because everything I have read says to quarantine them for four weeks and the guy had them for 2 1/2 months not around other fish. I put him in with the others because as soon as I changed his water(due to high ammonia levels) and his water sg started going up he started acting better and he ate really well the first night when I fed him the bloodworms. Since then he has been acting completely normal. Investigating, active and eating. I don't think he would have recovered so quickly had he been sick. It was literally within 2 hrs but the other one was just to far gone. But we will see. He doesn't look like there was ever anything wrong with him now. If he does have some kind of long term disease I don't think he would have recouped so fast and I haven't found any illnesses anywhere that would make sense with everything. Most of the stuff I read about would have killed him over a month ago. He doesn't even have ick or fin rot. He was just skinny and sluggish and he isn't either one of those things now. He has been exploring almost nonstop and he looks good now and has a good appetite. I have had fish for over 15 years and even though I am new to F8s I know alot about GSPs and other fish and symptoms to illnesses are almost always very similar from one specimen to another and from my knowledge his symptoms were due to lack of care. I was only posting about them on here to learn more about F8s from people that have them and not just from sites and to try and see if anyone knew of some way to save his tankmate but no one was able to help me.

[VampireHeart82]

Oh! I forgot to say that he did treat for parasites. A couple of weeks ago because that's one of the things I told him to do. He just decided he didn't want to do the other stuff I told him to.

[sevenyearnight]

I'm sorry you lost one... But it doesn't sound like there was much you could do.
How does his poop look? Keep an eye out for yellowish mucus or stringy poop.
If you upload to photobucket, you can post an IMG link here.