The Puffer Forum

Hi all, I'm back to check in...

What size was it when you moved it into full marine? About 1.5-1.75"
Did the fish survive? Yes
How long was it/is it in full marine? 8 months and counting
How large did it grow, and how fast? It's now nearly 4"
Did you notice any stress, lack of eating, poor coloration, weight loss, etc? Just got stressed during the middle brackish stage.
Did you return it to brackish levels at any point? Nope
If it died, how long was it alive? Still alive and puttering around the tank.


I had it housed with 30+ SW born Molly fry for a while and he didn't harm a single one.
He's now in a tank with a mated pair of striped Mandarins, Bangaii Cardinal, Yellow Tail Damsel, O. Clown, Yellow Watchman Goby w/a Randall's pistol shrimp buddy and a Starry Blenny, plus various snails for CUC and a med. hermit crab. He's shown no aggression to any of his tank mates and in fact he's been chased off by the Cardinal.

He hasn't harmed any of the CUC or even gone after the shrimp(though it was in his full view) and is the most docile fish in the tank besides the Mandarins.
He loves my homemade seafood mix (I add in garlic & Selcon) and blood worms.
He won't touch brine or mysis , though when in FW he ate ghost shrimp and snails.
I have softie corals as well as LPS and SPS and he's also left that all alone.

Mine are in full marine and quite happy and possibly in spawning mode. They've been in it for less than a month tho...

How large are they?

My GSP went from WalMart's fresh water to full marine very slowly (many weeks of gradually raising the specific gravity). It has been at full marine (1.020) now for 6 months and is doing great - growing slowly, but noticably, eating very well and very actively swimming.

What size was it when you moved it into full marine? 2 inches
Acclimated to marine in 5 weeks. Every increase in salt he seemed to look better and be happier.
Did the fish survive? Yes
How long was it/is it in full marine? Been 3 months
How large did it grow, and how fast? grew about 3/8" in 4 months and really thickened up
Did you notice any stress, lack of eating, poor coloration, weight loss, etc? exact opposite
Did you return it to brackish levels at any point? no and never will
If it died, how long was it alive? still pecking around at live rock and cheato in between feedings

I'm late to the party, but I am glad to see this thread. This is info that could be valuable long-term for our pets. If no one ever tries it we will never know, and long-term data is valuable and hard to come by.

Although the BW/SW puffers do move between water conditions apparently at will, we know nothing about the effect of those changes on their long-term heath and survival. Plus, that wild info will tell us nothing about their handing in captivity.

Pretty much all of my own experimental work (on all sorts of fish) has convinced me that stability is highly significant for long-term captive survival, pretty much across the board. That has little or nothing to do with wild survival directly, as the two situations are quite impossible to compare. But I would suspect that the sooner we get GSPs into stable and well-maintained conditions, the longer they will live in captivity. What I cannot guess or even do any intelligent projection of is when and how fast we need to get them into full marine. The options I see are drip-acclimation within a day or very few days at below 1" size, or whole-tank adjustment with weekly jumps of no more than 0.002 specific gravity differences per week, with possible slow-down at 1.008 -1.012 (the transition range for bacterial types for the require biofilters in BW). Only trials of both will show which is better - and we really will not know for >20 years from when we start. Those are purely captivity-related functions with no wild application. This would be totally new ground for all of us. But not many folks have lifestyles stable enough to even contemplate keeping a tank >20 years. I am too old to even consider it myself. That will have to be for younger folks.

So, some brave soul(s) with a 40-long to 55, with a 20-long to 33XL sump w/LR, a skimmer and a macroalgae refugium can drip-adjust a small GSP into full marine and move them directly into a stable and maintainable system while quite young. Those might be a big break-through. Or again, it might not. Perhaps the small weekly adjustment process would give better results long-term. Until some folks try it, we just will not know.

hi there i have just got two gsp and they are just hiding in one corner of the tank and will not come any where near me and they are also not eating i only got them yesterday does it take them a while to get use to things thank u for any help and if u can give me any advise i will be very greatful once again thanks

scottyboy1986 wrote:hi there i have just got two gsp and they are just hiding in one corner of the tank and will not come any where near me and they are also not eating i only got them yesterday does it take them a while to get use to things thank u for any help and if u can give me any advise i will be very greatful once again thanks

Think this needs to be moved to hospital & a new thread started?

Scotty, Please post this in the Hospital Forum & answer all the Qs posted at the top in red.

how do i open my own questions

Go to the Hosp Forum & click on NEW TOPIC.

Thank you all for sharing so much info. Ill be putting my 4 GSP's into full marine soon. They have been in brackish for about 4 months now since ive gotten them. I bought them in freshwater and slowly raised the levels of the tank for the salt. I will also be experimenting with freshwater snails to acclimate them to as high of a brackish level as i can get them so they dont croak the minute they go into the saltwater. Puffers love them.

I tried to gradually move my late GSP E.T. from brackish to saltwater. He was about 1 inch.
He was not happy about it. and the stress killed him. Before that he was a happy fellow.

I have now a GSP named fatso. He's 3 inches and he's almost in saltwater conditios.

I have just added my young puffers to full marine, the acclimation was a lot faster than most, but they seem to be doing fine!