The Puffer Forum

I suppose that's about me... Well in my defense I'm not insistent on anything i thought i was rather pretty responsive to the suggestions and tips i was merely trying to make it brackish for them but I'm new at this and made a mistake...

I'm a little confused myself. I know I've seen several times on this forum people saying that they can be in brackish as juveniles but the sooner you move them into high end to full marine, the better for the fish. Have the recommendations changed now? Its getting very confusing because other advice that has been given for awhile now seems to be changing as well. I really don't understand what is going on or why recommendations are changing.

The recommendations haven't changedas far as I am aware.

The GSP is a BW fish. As a juvenile they start it low BW conditions even FW but are suited better to low end BW conditions. They will be healthy, less desease prone and grow more readily.
As they mature the level of salinity needs to be increased towards high end BW almost SW conditions.

The reason some people keep them in full SW conditions is as PP has said. The introduction then of skimmers and live rock make life a little easier.
The choice of an adult GSP is high end BW or SW.

I think the number of people with apparently healthy semi-juvenile GSPs in SW is good evidence that they can be healthy - but we're still not sure about the long-term effects. Mine have been in saltwater (SG = 1.026) for almost a couple of years now - they were fully converted at around 3-4". They appear to be pretty healthy.

As for the original poster - yes, very unlikely to be ich now, what with the prolonged saltwater dip you've given them.

First things first - pick a salinity, and keep it there. I'd recommend mid-brackish, say around a specific gravity of 1.012 - 1.015. Make the change slowly - over the course of a day or two, via water changes.

Now, you bio filter will still be completely shot due to the salinity change. Add in bio-spira (marine variety). And, from this point on, don't change the specific gravity by more than 0.002 / week!!