The Puffer Forum

I recently purchased a ten gallon tank and filtered the tank with two mollies. After seeing GSP's at the LFS I purchased one for the ten gallon tank. After discovering that the puffer was quite bored with the ten gallon tank, and that the tank is too small for him in the first place, I purchased a twenty gallon tank for him. My puffer is now two inches and has a plethora of items to search around; he is quite active and always begging. He is living in a brackish water aquarium and I purchased him from a full marine aquarium. I would appreciate any suggestions.

Good for you for recognizing that he needed more space. I would say that the best suggestion is to feed him a variety of foods. Make sure not to overfeed (if the belly is all puffy he is full!). Some GSP can go a day or two with no food, some need to eat every day - get to know your individual puffer's needs. Spend time with him. The best way to keep your puffer healthy is to be able to spot little abnormalities in his behavior right away. Then you can fix a lot of issues before they get out of control. If he is hovering around the end of the tank and not swimming around - he's bored! Get him some plants (fake will do) and some objects like a castle or something to swim into. Obviously you want to keep your water parameters up to par. Be doing small water changes frequently instead of large water changes once in a while. This helps to keep the water at basically the same parameters instead of having drastic changes in temperature, salinity, etc.

Grats on the puffer They are great pets.

REad the Feeding article and GSP articles in the library.
oh and

I wrote an article about feeding specifically Green Spotted Puffers here:
http://greenspottedpuffer.110mb.com/feeding.htm
(We also have a wonderful article in the library on TPF, it's a bit generalized to suit all puffers, but is still a good article to read)

I also need to add that Green Spotted Puffers are omnivorous, and I'd suggest putting in some dried seaweed for him.

I think you should look into picking up a 30-40 gallon (used is probably best) for him in the near future. They eventually go to high-end brackish, and can be put into full marine, so you might want to consider something that can accommodate some nice pieces of live rock for a saltwater setup. He's still a baby, so you don't need to rush into the 30 gallon, but I'd consider getting one in the next few months to prevent the little guy from being stunted, and also to help maintain good water (the more volume you have, the easier it is to keep up with waste management).

Do you have some pictures of the little guy and his tank? We always love to see those!

Also, look into breeding/buying various types of shrimp and snails. My favourite right now are Ghost Shrimp and Cherry Shrimp. The little puffers love to hunt, and he'll get a good thrill from chowing down on those tasty critters!

What SG is he at now? How did you acclimate from the SW? Is he doing well?