The Puffer Forum

I was just wondering if my GSP can become a full salt water fish? I read in a couple of places that if you very slowly raise the salinity that the GSP will actually do better in salt water rather than brackish water... Is this true? If so, what kind of companions would you all recommend? Any other kind of puffer? What about clownfish? =) Thanks!

Yes when they reach adulthood it needs to be in full marine. You can read kore about GSP in the pufferpedia section. As for tankmates im not too sure. Never own a GSP before but im sure other member here can give you more info and about their GSP keeping experience.

It really depends on the attitude of your GSP. I have 2 GSP's with a Stars & Stripes puffer, a wrasse and a lawnmower blenny in the same tank. My GSP's don't bother the other fish at all. My SG is 1.020. I also had a porcupine puffer with them for a while until she got sick and passed. There has been no true agression in my tank. Again it all depends on the temperment of your fish. To answer your other question: We bring the GSP's up to full marine to give more options for other fish, corals etc. they do fine in high brackish.

When adding new fish (after qt.) I would always put a divider in my tank for at least a week to let them get use to each other. This way my puffers don't think of the new fish as food. You can add a divider and see how they react then after a week or so take the divider out and watch for agression. You could also rearrange all the rock in your tank so that there are no territories established, then turn off the lights and let the new fish relax. Hope this helps.

I keep a GSP in the saltwater tank kept at my parents house. The tank houses two True Percula Clowns and a banded clown. They get along great, the banded clown harassed the puffer for the first day now they totally ignore each other.

Thanks for all the awesome responses guys/gals.. I'll slowly bring Harry up to salt water and I'll take it from there.. =)

Before you do that, check out the GSP article in our Library.

I have found after much trial and error with my Gsps's that Scats work really well with them. They leave each other alone. And Scats eat whatever the puffers eat ( expect the hardshell stuff). You also want to get some alge wafers for the Scats. They are really pretty fish and also start in brakish water to full marine as they mature. I got the green spotted scats their very simialr to the Gsp's.

I have my Green Spots in full marine and they get along with their other tank mates. I do have a good deal of rock work that they can retreat to if they feel like being weenies.

They seem to do fine in our store tanks mixed with scats, but the scats are just outright NASTY to each other in pairs, so you'd need one really big tank to do that mix. It would probably be really fun though.