The Puffer Forum

A mind is a terrible thing to close?

My LFS insisted that there were no FW puffers.

I go through the same thing at almost every lfs around here. I've thought about printing out the pufferlist pages and putting them near the GSP tank where they have them in freshwater, so at least the customers can know if they should buy one.

Today, I went to pet smart to get another girl DPS, and the chick says 'you know, they need salt in their water', I said 'no, they do not, they are FW', and she still kept telling us that they are BW puffies. My boyfriend said 'Seriously, they do not belong in BW, they are COMPLETELY FW.' She didn't argue after that.

I went to another little fish store that we think take excellent care of their fish, and brought him in with me to make sure he wouldn't get too hot in the car. The guy at the register (who I've never seen working there before) says 'You know, they are BW puffies, like those puffers over there' and he points to a tank with GSP's AND F8's (mixed with no hiding spots!! so sad). I then said 'No, they are FW, and do not require salt..' He states 'Well, all puffers once they reach a certain length, require salt'. We told him that they only get to be the size of a grape, and that we had some that were fine in FW, and we had done our research on them so we knew what we were talking about.. That shut him up, but it still made us upset to know that they are telling people this and those who don't understand or haven't researched enough, will put them in BW. Frustrating!!

Well, one consolation is that I usually hear them define "salt in the water" as 1 tbs. of salt per 5 gallons, which is the normal amount generally recommended for most FW fish by many LFS/LPS places and isn't nearly enough to qualify as BW. And they always recommend aquarium salt, not marine salt. Its not really enough to hurt them any, I don't think.

Maybe the first girl meant that, but the second store clerk said 'brackish' =/

There is IMHO no justification for LFS suggesting that FW "need" aquarium salt in their water in any case. It displays their ignorance quite nicely. Nor is there any justification for hobbyists adding it routinely to their FW tanks. Why would anyone buy and use something completely unneeded to their tank? It drives me nuts.

Because they don't know any better, RTR. They are just parroting what has been told to them by others, and those others are parroting what was told to them, ad nauseum.

Hachi, I've had arguments with experienced fishkeepers who insist that 1 tbs. of aquarium salt in 5 gallons qualifies as "brackish" too. To many people, any amount of any kind of salt means brackish, whether it actually does or not. Hell, if that were the case, I put brackish water in my eyes all the time via my saline solution.

LOL! Real tears are a very light saline also, so by some hobby definitions, I suppose that would be BW.

No, it is not just parroting, because I doubt there are very many folks left who have not heard that "salt" addition id not needed. The issue is that they do not either think or investigate for themselves. They are cattle, following the leader up the chute to the killing floor.

RTR wrote:No, it is not just parroting, because I doubt there are very many folks left who have not heard that "salt" addition id not needed. The issue is that they do not either think or investigate for themselves. They are cattle, following the leader up the chute to the killing floor.

Have to agree with this wholeheartedly.

After hearing it's not necessary, most people I've heard mention salt addition afterwards seem to take the position of, "Well, it won't hurt, will it? So I'll add it just to be safe."