New GSP, poor planing, please help...

[Nas]

Hello everyone,


Soo...my questions are:
1.) Which is worse, keeping him in the 20 gallon community until the 10 is cycled or cycling the tank with him in there? (shouldn't be too much of a process since I added all that stuff from my other tanks).
2.)Should I up the salinity in the tank before or after I move the GSP?
3.) I know that driftwood brings PH down, but my PH is already high and I am afraid the aragonite substrate will raise it higher. Is it safe to keep the driftwood in and keep an eye on my PH?

Thank you so much for reading!

You're doing better than i did when i first got my gsp. I put mine in a 2.5gallon tank and used it to cycle the tank and it even survived a nitrite and ammonie spike when i went on a trip for a week... I guess as long as you keep an eye on him and monitor the water parameters you shouldn't have much of a problem as you seem to know what you are doing. Keeping him in a community tank, you run the risk of him eating or stressing out your other fish once he gets used to the environment and figures out they wont put up a fight. He could also have some sort of infection he could spread to the inhabitants of your community tank.

[Liquidblue]

Thanks everyone, I did a quick, small waterchange last night, but everything seems to be fine. As expected, he won't touch processed food, but I fed him bloodworms last night and he seems to have eaten them, though not as voraciously as I would have hoped...

[Myaj]

I think you are doing the right thing. One thing no one's mentioned, puffers are not bred in captivity, they are all wild caught. This means 99% of them have internal parasites, so its better for you to keep him separate from your other fish.

Once he's settled in, I would think about deworming him. He looks a bit thin. That should boost his appetite and help with his overall health.

For boosting the salinity, he's still pretty tiny so you'd be okay waiting, but adding some salt won't hurt either. Make sure you don't raise the salinity more than .002 per week, tiny fractions are just fine if you feel more comfortable doing it that way. The salt will be good for him, even in trace amounts.

it will also help stablilize your pH. As far as the aragonite substrate, your pH really can't go too high. It will just stablilize around 8.2. Stable is better than fluctuating, for sure.

[Liquidblue]

Thanks Myaj...I had read that they were wild caught, but of course, not *before* I put him into the community tank. I know wild caught fish can kill a whole tank with their hitch hikers, have a betta breeder friend that just went through that with some wild caught bettas. And after looking at eveyone elses pictures, he does look skinny. He is eating better though. He is eating frozen bloodworms and mysis shrimp, but only when the light are off. He has been getting snails and had a tiny ghost shrimp today.

The tank seems to be fine now. He still has a slight gray color between his belly and top half though. I read that means he is stressed out. The filter flow seems strong to me (of course, I am used to betta tanks) and I was thinking of making this: http://www.petfish.net/kb/entry/347/ for him. Do you think I should go ahead and deworm him or see if I can get the gray to go away first? He does have aquarium salt in his tank, but just 1/2 a tsp per gallon, just like my other fish...

I completely understand about the pH thing. Its nice to have a fish that can deal with the pH I have out of the tap...

[Myaj]

I wouldn't worry about the water flow from the filter. Most of us aim for a filter that can move 10x the amount of water our tank can hold.

For example, in a ten gallon tank, we'd use a filter that can move 100gph. For a 30 gallon tank, a filter that can move 300gph.

A weak fish will have a little trouble with high current, but if he's eating and you keep the water clean (daily water changes), he should be fine. One thing you can do is give him a plant or some rockwork that he can hide behind to get away from the current, if you haven't already.

I'd give him a few more days before you think about deworming. See how he does now that he's eating more healthy. If you feed him, his stomach fills out, but an hour later its looking thin again.. then I'd start thinking about deworming being necessary. If he puts weight on and starts keeping a belly, then you might be fine. Its still a good idea to do it eventually, but I do like to get as much weight on them as possible before doing it, if they are eating and look relatively healthy.

As far as the salt, we are referring to marine salt, like Instant Ocean. "Aquarium Salt" is pretty much worthless to these guys, it doesn't have the right minerals, etc. There's a lot more to marine salt than just sodium.

[Liquidblue]

Sorry it has been so long since my reply...spring break (I'm a teacher...)...The filter thats on the tank moves 125 gph. He has two caves, one is a half of a pot and the other is a hampster tube connector, and a sort of hollow in some drift wood to get out of the filters current...

he is def. putting on weight. He eats snails right out of our hand. We have also been giving him small ghost shrimp.

I have instant ocean, but haven't been using it...I make up big batches of water for my bettas and two other tanks, but I can just make his up seperate next time and use the instant ocean.

He still has sort of a grayish area between his white belly and spots, water params are all good...0s...PH of 8..and I don't reallly see him swimming up and down the sides of the tank

[LinearChaos]

... At least 2 of our local wal-marts flush live returned fish, and refuse to alter this policy despite our talking to store management. We were led to believe that this is a company-wide policy, but I really hope not...

I can't believe they would actually do that!

No kidding! The tanks at Wal-Mart are diseased as it is, it wouldn't make much difference to re-sell returns. I'm appalled

Liquidblue...he looks good so far, bright wight belly! Keep up the good work!