The Puffer Forum

Hi everyone, i'm new here and I just purchased 3 little puffers from total pet. They really don't know much about the fish they sell. First off they told me to buy a bunch of feeder fish(i believe they shodows clouds or something, I remember reading about someone saying they are the poor mans neon ) anyhow from reading here feeding live fish is not advised. I believe I have two species. 1 looks like Tetraodon biocellatus according to the pictures and the other two look like Tetraodon nigroviridis. Right now I have them in a 10 gallon tank which is small according to what you are suggesting here but they are just little right now, not even half the size of my pinky. I imagine when they start growing I will be after a new tank for them.

So anyhow the questions, I notice the are classified as brackish but all the pet store had them in was freshwater and that what they are currently in now. Is this a must to start adding salt or whats the ideal situation to do with them seeing they only been kept in freshwater so far.

Another question, seeing feeding live fish is not advised what is good to feed them? I been noticing they don't really like frezzed dried so what our we left with? I was thinking of trying to spawn shrimp eggs because i remember doing that as a teenager when i was into fish(kinda got out of it for a bit) but was kinda messy and in my new apartment I don't really want to turn my already small bathroom into a shrimp spawning area lol. If I was to go buy a shrimp ring at the grocery store and feed em a shrimp everyday would that work? or you think they would eat it in the frist place?

Also any other reccommendations to someone that is new to the puffers will be appreciated.

James.

Tetraodon nigroviridis (Green Spotted Puffers) require high brackish water or full marine when they get older and need at least 30 gallons each.
Tetraodon biocellatus (Figure 8s) require low end brackish and need 15 gallons, you could keep it in the 10 with very frequent water changes and very good filtration.
Both require two totally different tanks when older

try feeding them frozen bloodworms, mysid shrimp, and cockles.

Also did you cycle your tank? If so how?

I had the tank up and running for about a month now and I just added the the puffers today. prior to them i started it off with goldfish and used things such as cycle and aqua plus to prepare the tank. I then got rid of the gold fish about 2 weeks ago and jusst had the little feeder fish which the pet store told me to feed them and a pleco. One of the green spotted puffers is very bold, within the first 5 mins in the tank he tried to take a bite out of the pleco which is least 4-5 times its size.

Also I have a 29 gallon tank which I had intend to use it as a community tank and also considering to try a saltwater tank but I have never done that before. My girlfriend as a thing for the clown fish, think she watched finding nemo one to many times

Another thing, do the spoted puffers commonly eat smaller fish because so far the just seem interested in exploring the tank meanwhile the Tetraodon biocellatus has been after the feeders contantly. Its kinda weird how the pet store will have these fish and really not have proper knowledge of them.

All the store cares about is making money.

As puffers get older, they often get more and more aggressive.

Your biggest problem right now is that tank is way overstocked. A pleco won't even fit into a 10 gallon tank, once its full grown, and those puffers are very sensitive to dirty water, so overstocking is going to hurt them.

Read through the library, there's plenty of articles about GSP's and feeding puffers, that will explain a lot of what you need to know.