The Puffer Forum

hi my girl friend has a small tank with a figure 8 puffer and a green spotted puffer in very light brakish water. the figure 8 is well over two years old now and the green spotted is over a year old so i guess there happy how she keeps them. i am puling my 200 ltr afican cichlid tank down in favour of my first ever marine tank. i would love it to go in our front room but thats where the gf tank is. so as we r running a 70ltr tank for just two tiny puffers i would prefer to get rid of that tank and import the little puffers into my tank. now we got the aqualog book on puffers and in this it says two different things. on one page it says there brakish water only but on the description page and where it goes into much more detail it says they can both be fresh and brakish water but can be very sickly and fragile in fresh water and buy contrast can be very hardy in brakish and marine enviroments.
so my question to you all

do you know if these would be ok in full marine (35ppt salt) walter. has any of you got sum in marine tanks. id really hate to hurt the little blighters espically as i now have the dentistry down to a fine art.
i know id have to build em up slowly to the salt water but this is not a problem i have time ( i hope ) please only answer if you really know from experience that these will be ok as my girl friend would never forgive me if i killed em.

oh second question. will they eat my cleaner hermit crabs hehehehe they wont go near horn snails as there too tuff for them and way to big so hermit crabs would be the size of them hehehehe. i think they would be fine and might even enjoy sum company of a few reef mates.

right any ideas???????????????????

sorry i double posted this as i put it in wrong place first time.

Figure 8 puffers are a low brackish puffer that do not do well in higher salt levels. Require about 15 gallons (45 litres or so) per puffer to be healthy and have territory room.

Green Spotted Puffers are a larger, higher brackish puffer that do very well in full marine. They need 30 gallons per GSP (90 litres or so).

You'd be best off keeping the little tank for the Figure 8 at low brackish, and putting the GSP with a few carefully chosen tankmates in the larger tank. They are also very likely to bite and kill any corals, other than a few mushrooms and that sort of thing. So if you want to have a real reef with corals, a GSP is a dangerous addition.

A full grown GSP will easily kill hermit crabs, etc. How large are yours at the moment?

There's plenty of articles in our library, species profiles in the Pufferpedia (both found under the "Learn" tab in our header bar. The search function comes in handy as well, most topics have been gone over repeatedly on almost a daily basis

ok thanks mate. no point if there gonna eat my corals or its will be just a tank with rock in it there in a 70 ltr tank now and seam fine for the last year together. there is no territory issues at all. after having cichlids for a long time i know all about territory issues i asure you they are both about 1.5 to 2 " i guess i never messured them. they look lost in that little tank even. they dont fight, bite each other they even eat from the same piece of food even though there feed multi bits.
i will use the search more often sorry.

These are very easily stunted fish.. your GSP should be larger than that by now so I would suggest upgrading and getting that guy into higher salt levels. Stunting them now really shows up in a year or two, when their organs start failing and their immune systems are compromised. These guys should easily live over 10 years and be the size of a small football

can u give a salt level that will be good for him. one pref that the little figure 8 will cope with too. i know this is not the best of worlds but thats my lfs for u told us they were the same water/salt levels. surley we could get a middle ground as such. they seam to be doing well i must say. they eat all there food and are contsantly on the go. its not like there moping arround or anything there very active.

problem with these puffers is not enough people know about them i find. there all happy to sell them and take ya money and give it all the talk as if they know there stuff but in reallity they know nothing. so i refer to books and again you just get conflicting answers as my first post said sumtimes in the same book. i think as these little tiny fish seam to be able to swim massive distances up and down estries every one who has found them and say thats what the water is like there is wrong as next week they will be in another part of the river which is much more /less salty. i quess thats why this forum is so busy but even on here most of it is from experience not proper knowledge ie scientific research. i hope you all dont take this the wrong way as this site is about one of the only places that agrees on things and is atchully any help to the newbies and old timers alike. people get told of on here so much for doing this and that but most of time there just following the instructions of the lfs like i was with these too. either way looks like the idea of putting em in my marine tank when its ready is over as there would be no point running one tank for one figure 8 and no way im spending a fortune on corals just so they can be food. thanks for you honest reply and time

I'm kind of hesitant to say it because I don't know how it would turn out, but I'd be very interested to see a Figure 8 in full marine.
What with my experience with them, and after having (briefly) studied estuaries and euryhaline animals, I'd find it very surprising if some wild Figure 8's didn't venture out into marine conditions on occasion.

I had two F8's at full marine for a number of months, by force. They did not seem sick, but it was a very short time overall, so I have no idea how it would work out past that. I'd say likely better than FW, but not as good as low brackish, but this is guesswork on my part.

I have 2 figure 8s in full marine for about 3months now and they seem hungry and happy as ever.

Well, take this with a grain of salt, I don't know how true this is, but there was a young-ish guy that worked at my LFS for a little while...had a conversation with him....he managed to "train" his dogface puffer to live in FW. He was in there for about 6 months and then died one day. I am sure fish can get used to the conditions...but long term....?

thanks for the replys guys. im gonna see how it goes with em in brakish all be it at a higher level than they been in. i brought a refractometer and found the salt level was too low anyway so have been very slowly adding salt to bring the levels up. and as for my marine tank.....credit cruch has started to hit work so ive had to put it on hold for a while, maybe in a few months ill be able to go for it. in mean time i dont know if im allowed to post his but my old tank is on flea bay Item number: 200302605600 ending 31st jan.