Making Sense of Switching to Marine

mommyfox · Post by **mommyfox** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:53 pm

Hello! I have a 2" GSP that I've had in a freshwater tank for several months. He's the only fish in my 33 long, pH 8.0, 78 degrees, nitrates < 20. There is aquarium salt in the water (the amount recommended on the package.) If what I've read is correct, he's about to need to go brackish. Is there any reason I couldn't change his tank to full marine?

Here are my reasons why I'd do this ... I had a saltwater tank, once upon a hundred years ago, and I think I've still got a pretty good grasp of what it takes to have a saltwater tank. I'd like to set it up right from the beginning - meaning, live sand to cycle the tank, using RO water, maybe even live rock. The water I'm using right now is just from my tap (conditioned, of course, to remove chlorine and chloramines.) While it seems to have done him fine so far, I don't want to get down the road and fail due to water quality, which I have experienced is much more vital in SW. The puffer could stay in my 10 gallon tank (currently empty) while I cycled his big tank to saltwater.

I'm not sure how I'd cycle a brackish tank (I'd still like to replace the water with good RO water from the pet store) and I don't want to get any other brackish fish, since I'll have to go full marine one day.

One final note: any chance a damselfish would live peacefully with a GSP? I love those little blue and yellow guys, but I'm not sure they have the same type of aggression.

Boxermom · Post by **Boxermom** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:55 pm

He needs brackish using marine salt, not aquarium salt. Read the GSP article in the library and it will tell you how to go about raising the salinity as it grows. Yes you can go full marine eventually.

mommyfox · Post by **mommyfox** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 5:17 pm

Yes, I'm aware that I will be using marine salt when I change from freshwater to brackish. The question was whether I could skip brackish altogether and go straight to saltwater, because I would rather buy good water from the pet store, already mixed, than try to mix the water myself. Did that once ages ago with a previous tank and found it a royal pain in the tush.

Also, some sites say that to acclimate the puffer, to raise it by .002 an hour; another site says .005 a WEEK. Pretty big discrepancy; which one's right?

Boxermom · Post by **Boxermom** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 5:25 pm

Acclimating the fish is different than acclimating a tank. The fish can be acclimated faster than the tank. I'd recommend doing a search on this site and following the recommendations here.

Personally I wouldn't go full marine with a GSP that small, but its your fish. I follow the guidelines written by PufferPunk in the GSP article in the library. To my knowledge, she has never steered anyone wrong, especially when it comes to caring for a GSP for its optimal health.

I don't find mixing water all that tedious myself. Once I got the hang of it, it became quite simple.

mommyfox · Post by **mommyfox** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:43 pm

That must be the difference, then - a change of .002 a week for changing tanks, and .005 an hour for acclimating puffers alone.

I spent a year mixing water, and I hated it. Hated, hated, hated it. I inevitably made a mess no matter how I tried, I could never get the salinity I wanted, the temperature was always off - what a headache. And I had to go to the pet store anyway to get RO water. I'd so much rather get premixed water that will be the same salinity and quality every time.

What I'd really like to know is WHY to wait until the puffer is 4" long to move to saltwater.

How long does it generally take a puffer to grow from 2" to 4"?

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:59 pm

The idea of increasing salinity based on size is based on the natural GSP lifecycle, in which it moves into fresh water to spawn, and the offspring gradually work their way downriver to the end, just before the open sea, which is VERY heavily brackish to full marine, depending on tides and rainfall. A 4" gsp is about the right size to be at the end of his youth's journey, and thus biologically suited for up to full salt water via nature.

rainmaker69 · Post by **rainmaker69** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 10:15 pm

This is what I did, and I am not saying that it is right or wrong, just my experience. My GSP came to me at about 2.5" from a person who thought that it would mix well with his community tank, wrong. I put him in a spare 30 gallon tank in freshwater and started to raise the sg as per the instructions of this site, .002 per week max. There were times when I would let it ride for more than a week and by the time that I got the sg up to .016, I figured that I might as well keep going on to full marine, taking my time. My fish was just about 3" by the time I reached a sg of .022 and was thriving, and still is after being there for a little better than a year. That is when I made my mistake. I added a 3 stripe damsel to the tank and while it was young, there was no problems, they coinhabited great, but, as the damsel matured he became a very aggressive SOB that I am still trying to find a new home for. You can try, but I would not advise a damsel as they are miserable little beggers, and practically impossible to catch without tearing the tank apart.

mommyfox · Post by **mommyfox** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 10:38 pm

Ahahah - thanks! I'll nix the damsel idea. Maybe one of these days I'll upgrade to a massive tank and add a dwarf lionfish - I've heard they do well with puffers.

Hehhh, maybe I can get this one really good LFS to help me figure out the water thing. They sell fresh and salt RO, so maybe I can have a designated bucket and figure out the exact ratio to fill it with a combo of their fresh and salt to get the right SG ... that way I could avoid mixing it myself.

Boxermom · Post by **Boxermom** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 10:44 pm

http://homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/ ... part2.html

Post by **Pufferpunk** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 10:48 pm

I would definately not add any long-finned fish w/a puffer. Try a tomato clownfish.

JustinPSmith · Post by **JustinPSmith** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 12:58 am

I have seen a Dwarf Lion do great with a GSP. The GSP was being picked on a little bit but otherwise they were fine together. They are still together after at least the 4 years I have seen them but you can end up with a very tough situation if your fish end up fighting, so make sure you have a back up plan! These two fish are in a 50G I think it is...Its at a LFS. The Puffer was one that was being picked on when they got a new batch in one day and they put him in with the Dwarf. He has been in Marine water most of his life and is now about 5 or 6" and happy, so Im not so sure there are many bad side effects of keeping them in marine from a young age. I might be wrong though! I do know that one advantage is the much more stable water quality!

Marx · Post by **Marx** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 6:01 am

I'm going full marine on my GSP at this moment

I bought him at almost 4 inches and he was in cold fresh water. Today I'll get the salt needed and I hope to get his tank full marine after the weekend.

I bought some dead live rocks already and when full marine the real live rocks will go in. For me it's impossible to cycle the tank as the salinity gets higher and higher over the course of weeks.

That's why I chose to go full marine in a few days.

Here is a picture of the tank today:

mommyfox · Post by **mommyfox** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 10:19 am

Could be I read your post wrong, but let me make sure I'm right, could save you some trouble ... I've been reading incessantly, and most articles say to acclimate a TANK to Saltwater over the course of several weeks, so as not to crash your bacteria. So if you want saltwater over the course of a few days, you'd essentially have an uncycled tank, and a dead puffer. Do I have that right, guys?

But maybe you meant the puffer was in another tank being brought up to saltwater, and the marine tank in the picture is already cycled ...

mommyfox · Post by **mommyfox** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 10:24 am

And oh - I've read that anacharis (sp?) does alright with brackish. So I'll have a lot of that. Any tips in that regard, folk? I bought a hydrometer, so that's step #1 in the right direction.

The articles I've read that paired dwarf lions with GSPs have indicated that the lionfish's venom is what keeps the puffer from tagging him. I'm hoping to keep hermit crabs in there - no, wait for it - as I've heard that keeping tons and tons of empty shells on the bottom fools the puffer so he can't find the yummy little crustaceans (and if he finds a few, well, that's a crunchy snack.) I'm sure I'll have to replace some from time to time ...

I think I'm going to try for brackish until he's bigger, though. *sigh* At least it will be less expensive, maybe.

Marx · Post by **Marx** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 2:12 pm

mommyfox wrote:Could be I read your post wrong, but let me make sure I'm right, could save you some trouble ... I've been reading incessantly, and most articles say to acclimate a TANK to Saltwater over the course of several weeks, so as not to crash your bacteria. So if you want saltwater over the course of a few days, you'd essentially have an uncycled tank, and a dead puffer. Do I have that right, guys?

But maybe you meant the puffer was in another tank being brought up to saltwater, and the marine tank in the picture is already cycled ...

I bought the puffer from a freshwater tank, I put him in a non-cycled tank at home and that tank will never cycle if I keep raising salinity. So I choose to raise it fast and than put in some material from a fully cycled marine tank. That with a lot of water changes will do fine for my fish. He's in that tank for 2 weeks now and doing great. His fungus has gone and he's eating well. At first he was almost black, at the moment he's beautiful and active. I measure my water every day, no problems there.

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