New member and owner of a GSP

[scdude1]

After checking the water parameters the ammonia was raised from 0 to in between .25-.75, but everything else was normal pH 7.6 and temp 78F so I did a 25% water change and he seems to be acting normal and attacked and ate a snail that I dropped in the tank, I'll do another 25% water change tomorrow just to be safe. Thanks for the advice.

[bertie 83]

You need to keep doing waterchanges till your ammonia is a steady 0. Do not allow it to build up, you may need to do larger changes than 25%. I would do 50% daily until your ammonia stays put at 0

[scdude1]

Ok will do, thanks for the tip!

[bertie 83]

Just to add if you have prime use that. Double dosing wont hurt, it will stop your ammonia from being so harmful but still allow your good bacteria to feed lol. Keep up the 50% w/c

[scdude1]

I did end up purchasing prime and melafix the other day after reading some articles in the library so I will be sure to use the Prime when conducting the water changes. Thanks!

[Reaperpilot2014]

It sounds like you've done your research and know what you are doing. Aside from Fahakas, GSPs are probably the most intelligent and entertaining puffers I have ever had.

For food, I would strongly recommend setting up a breeder tank (or bucket) with the above mentioned ramshorn snails, although I would get 25 or 50 to start with since the GSP will be eating them while they breed.

Another food to breed is marmorkrebs, or marbled crayfish. If you haven't heard of them, look up marmorkreb on wikipedia. Long story short, you only need one to start breeding. They don't eat your plants, they don't eat your fish (they do eat a few snails now and then), and they have about 100-200 babies every other month.

Both of these foods will be great for keeping your puffer's beak trimmed, and are really easy to breed.

Hope some of this helps!

[scdude1]

It does help alot thank you! I'm planning on starting a breeder ramshorn snail tank but the marmokrebs sounds interesting as well. I didn't think my puffer would be able to take down a crayfish.. How big of a tank would I need to start breeding them?

[Reaperpilot2014]

I know it sounds terrible, but I started them in a 10g bucket from Lowe's until I got my 30 gallon tank. I now keep both the ramshorns and the marmorkrebs in the same tank. When the females are berried and the eggs are ready to hatch, I put them back in the bucket to keep the fry separated. I find the 30 gallon tank easier to use since water conditions in general stay better.

There has been lab research showing they can healthily be kept in much more compact conditions than I am using.

Jimenez, S., & Faulkes, Z. (2010). Establishment and care of a laboratory colony of parthenogenetic Marbled Crayfish, Marmorkrebs. Invertebrate Rearing, 1(1), 10 - 18.

[scdude1]

Nah that doesn't sound terrible i was thinking about starting out with a 10g breeder tank because I'm in a college apt and I'm only allowed 25 gallons of water in my room period and I have a 30g cichlid tank, 15g gsp tank, 10g breeder tank and I'm upgrading my gsp to a 30g soon... gonna be fun trying to hide all this come inspection time to avoid some huge fines.. haha. I'm interested in the marmorkrebs and would love to attempt to breed them and ramshorns, my gsp better appreciate all this lol.