The Puffer Forum

Oh yeah, that one. Hint: they're all fake!

O they looked pretty colorful. I kinda thought so. But Ima try to experiment with a few small 10-15$ frags and see what happens. There are some real full reef tanks on youtube with GSP and other puffers in there. But you never kno if all thats still there 3 months after the video is posted. How do you feed your typical corals and. I have seen a guy on youtube do a DIY reef tank food. It was all types of seafood with nori chopped and calcium liqiud and vitamin c mixed up then portioned and frozen it to flat bags like frozen blackworms so you could just break a chunk of and feed the fish and coral, food and supplements. I not sure how well that works. I really dont want to have to target feed corals I can deal with that for something like a anemone.

Did the fish survive? yes

How long was it/is it in full marine? 5 months

How large did it grow, and how fast? maybe .5 inches

Did you notice any stress, lack of eating, poor coloration, weight loss, etc? none whatsoever, however he has never attempted to eat saltwater snails, but did eat freshwater snails

Did you return it to brackish levels at any point? no

If it died, how long was it alive? didnt

Thanks Ken, I think we're looking more for long-term (many years, 10+) success.

i dont have the years worth of success yet. but how young is "too young" to have in marine? i started converting mine over at close to 3 inches. has been in marine for close to a year now and shot from the just below 3 inch mark to 4 1/2 inches in a few short months after starting the conversion.

The "gradually increase SG" model came from the observation that the younger the GSP, the longer it can live in pure FW without serious health risks. The adults are known to thrive near river mouths, with very high brackish conditions, but also venture up river to low brackish and even fresh water for brief times. The assumption was made from this information that they breed in FW, and move to high brackish(even marine) as adults.

Then when scientists finally bred GSP, the bombshell hit. The adults breed in full marine(in fact, they're infertile in fresh and most brackish water), and the babies are born in full marine and live there for at least some of their youth... the fact that younger GSP outlive older GSP in fresh water appears to be because the young simply have a more vigorous immune system.

Based on this information, I see no reason to keep a GSP at below marine SG at any age unless you prefer a brackish tank to a marine one for some reason.

i was just asking because i started my conversion from FW to brackish when he was about 2 inches(his body, not incl. fins) he seemed to take really well to it, i did a pretty slow conversion, probably about .002 every three or four weeks. after i hit maybe 1.010 he started spurting, grew out from the 2 inches to about 4. also switched to a 75 once he hit full marine but hasnt really grown too much since he shot up to 4 inches but hes still young.

hi all, at the moment i am keeping my 2 gsps ozzy and eric in a 200l apprx 60 uk gallons 1.010 brackish set up using an exterior canister filter containing similar filter media and sponges etc as my freshwater setup. the larger of the two puffers(ozzy) is about 1 year old, while eric is about 8 months old. both are healthy and eating well,eric seems to be more greedy than ozzy! although ozzy shows his colours more than eric. what i would like to know is when to start raising the salinity,and will i need to use live rock once they are in full marine. i will soon be converting my fresh water tank to marine,and will hopefully have a ready supply of cured live rock available. best wishes breadfan.

From what Nick says, now wouldn't hurt.

Nick wrote:Then when scientists finally bred GSP, the bombshell hit. The adults breed in full marine(in fact, they're infertile in fresh and most brackish water), and the babies are born in full marine and live there for at least some of their youth... the fact that younger GSP outlive older GSP in fresh water appears to be because the young simply have a more vigorous immune system.

Nick,

Any theories why young GSP's retreat to FW areas?

I mean... why would they leave the marine environment soon after birth?

(I'm sure a higher survival rate has to do with it... maybe less predators in FW?)

Curious.

My guess is that bays/mouths have readiest supply of microfoods for TINY fry, as well as having plenty to offer larger puffers, but the 1/3 of an inch to one or two inch puffers probably have an easier time finding suitably sized food a bit more up the river. This is just a guess, though.

hi all, my 3 green spotted have been in salinity of 1.021 for about 4 weeks now when i got them they all were just under an inch before i got them i checked the salinity of the water at the pet shop and it was just under 1.000 so next to no salt, they are now 1.5 inch and seem to be enjoying every minute of it.

murph wrote:hi all, my 3 green spotted have been in salinity of 1.021 for about 4 weeks now when i got them they all were just under an inch before i got them i checked the salinity of the water at the pet shop and it was just under 1.000 so next to no salt, they are now 1.5 inch and seem to be enjoying every minute of it.

Please read my other post to you, your tank is too small for 3 GSPs and F8s

+1

i checked the salinity of the water at the pet shop and it was just under 1.000

FW has a SG of 1.000, no such thing as being below that, so there is something wrong (uncalibrated) with your hydrometer/refractometer. I agree, the 2 species need to be separated:
library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
library/puffers-in-focus/fig8/