The Puffer Forum

hello everyone, im new to this so please bear with me haha
i have always kept freshwater puffers, mostly dwarf puffers, (i felt i wasnt educated enough for the brackish or saltwater puffers) so i knew that finding fresh water plants for them is easy. well since then i decided to take the plunge and try my hands at a brackish aquarium. i did a lot of reading up on brackish aquariums in general then later decided to go with a green spotted puffer. now my question is, and i only read this info on the net so it may not be acurate, but are amazon sword plants ok in brackish water? the website i read this on said that they were.

also, after bringing my new georgous fishy home (i named him Dumpy) he did the same thing my freshwater puffers did and was very shy, so he wasnt touching his food. i asked the man at the fish store when the last time he was fed and he said a day ago. well, its going on two days now and hes still not eating. his stomach is white and round. its not sunken in, he still has wonderful color on the top of him and he doesnt seemed stressed anymore. i tried feeding him some krill, and blood worms and he just doesnt seem interested...am i just being paranoid?

The selection of plants for a Figure-8 pufferfish is long. Basically any species tolerant of hard water will do fine at SG 1.003. Hygrophila, Vallisneria, Elodea, Anubias, Java fern, Java moss, Crinum, Cryptocoryne wendtii, Cryptocoryne ciliata, Bacopa, etc., etc. Amazon swords can adapt well, but it depends on the exact variety, and I'd tend to recommend against them just to be on the safe side. But assuming you have bright lights and a good rich substrate, definitely worth a shot.

Once you go above SG 1.003 the list of plants shortens, and it's basically brackish water specialists like Java fern, Cryptocoryne ciliata and Crinum calamistratum you have to go with. Plastic plants are usually an easier and more reliable option, especially above SG 1.005. (Hence, if you're keeping a mid to high salinity puffer, like a GSP, you may as well forget about plants completely.)

Puffers may not eat for a few days after purchase. Assuming the belly is nice and round, this isn't a problem. Stick a few snails in the tank if you want, and it'll eat them when it feels peckish. Otherwise, wait a few days and then start offering live foods like Artemia and bloodworms; these usually persuade reluctant feeders to start eating.

Cheers, Neale

I have read that Amazon Swords are fine in Brackish aquariums before, but personal experience says no. Using the same lighting system they worked fine with in freshwater they have insisted on dieing in a tank with low-end (juvenile GSP) brackish water.
I have had a lot of success with crypts in this tank, and they look lovely, but for taller plants with more coverage I have not had much luck.

For tall plants, do try Cryptocoryne ciliata. It's a brackish water plant in the wild, and gets to around 50 cm in height, which should be plenty tall enough for most tanks. It's also very hardy and long-lived.

http://www.nationaalherbarium.nl/Crypto ... l/cil.html

Cheers, Neale

i have had success with crypt ciliata in an SG of 1.005 - its a great plant and has pretty regular, but slow new growth, which is fun to watch

to add to your list neale, hornwort has also be a great addition - it grows superfast, which helps to control alagae

Agreed: hornwort is one of my must-have plants. It's good in ponds, it's great in breeding tanks, and it's a good algae-beater in planted tanks. Cheap, too.

Cheers, Neale

gee thanks everyone.
i heard about hornwart too.
im also happy to announce my puffer is eating. he was full and still held onto the shrimp in his mouth even though he wast eating it. haha it was funny.

i got another question now.
knowing they need brackish water i use marine salt. i have been told its okay to use aquarium salt, yet also have been told not to. whats the say on this?

Aquarium salt makes salty water, not brackish water, marine salt contains many trace elements that simulates natural sea water as close is possible. You won't get those with aquarium salt.

While I agree with Hilly that marine salt is what you want, my feeling is that it is the carbonate hardness that matters more. The marine salt mix will raise the KH and stabilise the pH. For brackish water fish, avoiding acidification is essential to long term health.

That said, as Hilly says, the chemical composition of marine salt mix does also ensure a supply of trace elements, which may be important as a dietary supplement. At the moment, scientists don't really know whether fish absorb trace elements from the water, or if they do, to what degree this is essential or merely a supplement to diet.

Cheers, Neale

nmonks wrote:While I agree with Hilly that marine salt is what you want, my feeling is that it is the carbonate hardness that matters more. The marine salt mix will raise the KH and stabilise the pH. For brackish water fish, avoiding acidification is essential to long term health.

That said, as Hilly says, the chemical composition of marine salt mix does also ensure a supply of trace elements, which may be important as a dietary supplement. At the moment, scientists don't really know whether fish absorb trace elements from the water, or if they do, to what degree this is essential or merely a supplement to diet.

Cheers, Neale

Agreeing with you on the hardness of the water is a very important factor more so than the actual salinity. Have any scientific studies been done or are ongoing on this Neale?

No scientific studies as such. Merely the observation that things like monos and scats will live and even spawn in very hard, alkaline freshwater conditions, but become visibly sickly once the pH is below 7.5 and the hardness medium to soft.

There's also the issue of acidification in aquaria, which happens regardless, and high KH is your best insurance against that.

Cheers, Neale

so to be on the safe side stick to marine salt? yet the KH is more important?

It isn't an either-or; it's a both. Marine salt mix will take care of salinity and KH at the same time, automatically, without any additional work from you. Easy peasey.

There's really nothing to discuss. If you're keeping a brackish water pufferfish, it boils down to this:
* Freshwater, bad.
* Freshwater plus tonic salt, tolerable in the short term.
* True brackish water made with marine salt mix, good.

Cheers, Neale

dumpythepuffer wrote:so to be on the safe side stick to marine salt? yet the KH is more important?

my appoligizies for being a little annoying. haha! im just over worrying.
easy peasy lemon squeezy, got it

dumpythepuffer wrote:my appoligizies for being a little annoying. haha! im just over worrying.
easy peasy lemon squeezy, got it

No need to apologise, it's a valid question and looks like you got the answer you were looking for.