The Puffer Forum

My boyfriend and I went to our LFS three weeks ago and saw the cutest little fish ever. Looked kinda like a fat hummingbird with dots. So we brought this fish home to our FW akvarium believing it was an easy fish. Thats what the store owner told us. You can perhaps imagine how terified i was when i read the thruth about this fish. I mean, i thought that my LFS had just a bit of knowledge about their fish. I actually got rather sad, because this fish needed a lot different conditions than we could give them. At the beginning we just kept them in our FW akvarium because we hoped the BW water tank could wait a couple of months. But then they started biting at our other fish, (most of which have recovered really good,) and one GSP got really sick. So I went out to get another tank. Unfortunately the sick GSP died before i got to bring it home. We started up the other akvarium, and bought a new GSP. Theyre now in a BW akvarium, unfortunately to small for even one, I dont really know why we didnt wait to by a new one. Now were just waiting to find a another bigger akvarium. Were thinking 250 ltr. And if we can find one on the internet we will get it this sunday. So my question is how can i start this new tank up a little faster? We do have these drop things to kickstart it, but what about using fishfood? Can that be recomended? I would really like to get them in a bigger tank as soon as possible, without risking their health even more. Because theye really fragile at the moment.
I really hate that it has happened like this, because it is a really beautiful fish and theyre not doing good. The oldest one is eating, but it changes colour from white to grey right after its done eating. The other one havent eaten for 4-5 days, and its getting really thin. Ive tried my best with lots of plants and hiding places. I hope you can help, and please judge me to as a bad person, cause i really feel bad for my fish.

Get your larger tank set up and ready to go as far as BW and all decor/filter/substrate etc that you want. When you are ready to transfer your fish you can also add the filter from the current tank along with any decor you wish to move over and that will jumpstart your tank for you. Your good bacteria is in your filter media and attached to decor and gravel. I have jumpstarted several aquariums with gravel, filter media or even just swishing a biowheel from another tank thru the water. Good luck, GSP's are beautiful, I am just no ready for their salinity needs.

You can use your filter media from the old tank to basically instantly cycle the new gsp tank. Most of the products to "instantly cycle tanks" don't work, Bio spira is the only one that can.You could use fish food to cycle the tank but that would take 4-6 weeks so using filter media is your best bet IMO.
Don't feel bad many people are mislead by there fish stores. And your trying to give them the best possible home instead.

Yes, most stores have no idea how to keep GSP's but they are one of the cutest fish, and therefore, they sell really well. When I was a teenager, I think I killed about 6 of them, but they were so cute every time mine would die, I'd go get another. The store owner told me "yeah, they just aren't very long lived fish". One day I'm going to go back in there and kick him in a place he isn't going to like very much .

But with your fish.. get the new tank running now! Moving the two little puffers into a nice, big tank will give them much better water quality, and using the filters and some of the decor and gravel from their other tank will help it cycle fast. Personally I would start it out freshwater, or only at 1.002, and then raise it .002 every week until you get it where you want it. But the key thing right now is their water quality has to be kept good, and in a tank that's too small, you can't do that.

So you've read up on the basics here right? You understand the difference in salt types and that you need marine salt and a hydrometer to measure it? Just want to check!

Yes i have studied this forum really hard I do have the right kind of salt. (and its not exactly cheap!) But i dont have a hydrometer. We have just been taking a close look at how much water we where taking out and then adding the same amount, with new salt. But im gonna check for a hydrometer tomorrow.

Okay. The risky part with that is if you raise it more than .002 per week, you can kill all the bacteria. That's why its best to measure.

But if you're only doing small amounts of the salt, as in a few tablespoons, you should be fine.