The Puffer Forum

Hi guys if you have my introduction you may know that i have recently had 3 GSP's which i bought from i local fish shop as i couldnt leave them there as they where skinny and half dead.

Not the exact way i wanted to join the world of puffers how ever non the less here i am

I would greatly appreciate advice on feeding them please

The owner feed them mainly on tropical flake and once i week blood worm.

I currently feed them on daily blood allowing to get a round belly They do seem to be responding well to this i am trying to introduce them to cockels how no success yet.

They are around an inch to an inch and a half. i currently have them in a two foot tank i was hoping to have a 3 1/2 to 4 foot tanke before getting these puffers how when i seen these guys i couldnt leave them there.

I have ocean rock in there coral sand mixed with gravel and a few plants
An air pump and fluval +2 filter set to maximum

I am carrying out a weekly 25% water change

i think this is everything
Please all advice is welcome in regards to everything. I will be getting the tank mentioned above shortly

Thanks for reading this
Jas

You can find out more about these little puffery friends in the pufferpedia, and and an article about them by PufferPunk in the Puffer Library, along with general puffer feeding.

Flake food is something that should not be in the diet. Freeze dried krill is a very very once in a while food. Its best to get them on a mixed diet of frozen, uncooked shrimp, clams, scallops, crabs, and mine has developed a taste for mysis shrimp. Best to defrost the food in aquarium water, or also recommended is something called vitamin water (I don't know much about this, but someone else might be able to chime in about this) for about 30 mins. Feed em, and remove all unfinished foods where possible.

Snails is also a good thing for them, you are gonna be looking for crunchy foods for them to wear their teeth down with so you don't have to deal with trimming their teeth. And they all seem to love live blood/black worms.

Please do note that each GSP does and will require 30 gallons each. They will get big. And I hope yours do. They are awesome puffers.

GSP's also will require high brackish to marine conditions eventually, so marine salt is in your future, unless you already have some.

As for water changes, I would check your water quality with a test kit to make sure that 25% weekly is enough. If it manages to keep your Nitrates below 20ppm, you are totally fine. If not, more frequent changes will be in order.

Oh, and welcome to TPF!

I'm so glad you found us! I think that those poor fellas were starving, given the wrong food. The only problem I see with rescuing puffers like that, is supporting the bad practrices of that LFS, instead of supporting a store that takes good care of their puffers. Believe me, there will be 3 more to replace yours. I hope they make it & live long, happy healthy lives in your care!

Jason, has your tank been cycled before?
Don't you know how many gallons your tank has?
I don't know how to calcute to find the volume in gallons... It's important to know it to know the percentage of water changes, ok? They are messy fish, then you have to do large water changes to keep the water pristine, since they are sensitive fish when the subject is water quality.

How are they doing? That would be nice if you could post some pictures of them... then we can check if there's something going wrong with them.

I know What your saying about supporting the wrong shop i was going to walk away but they just pulled at the heart strings and i had my little girl there who heard me say they werent to well. You can work out volume by LxWxH cm Divided by 1000 gives you litres mine is around 70 i know its to small at present but i am getting around 4 tank shortly. The tank was already cycled as there is 3 mollies living in there already. I have done plenty of research on the GSP its just due to the condition of them being under weight changes everything. Thank you for your advice so far guys like i said all is appreciated jas

jlo wrote:I know What your saying about supporting the wrong shop i was going to walk away but they just pulled at the heart strings and i had my little girl there who heard me say they werent to well. You can work out volume by LxWxH Divided by 1000 gives you litres mine is around 70 i know its to small at present but i am getting around 4 tank shortly. The tank was already cycled as there is 3 mollies living in there already. I have done plenty of research on the GSP its just due to the condition of them being under weight changes everything. Thank you for your advice so far guys like i said all is appreciated jas

What are your water levels?

Sorry do you mean ammonia and nitrates they are at 0 checked 2 days ago ph is 7 are there ok

What about raising the ph to around 8 and starting to add some marine salt?

OK i will try that as rule of thumb for introducing salt is a table spoon pre litre with the water change a good starting point till it reaches 0.7. I have only had them for 5 days is this enough time to introduce salt.

Unfortunatly we lost one last night it was the one which i would describe as the worst he basically a head and bones.

Sorry for your loss

Thank you just hope i gave him or her better days than at that lfs

Sorry for your loss

Since they don't have the appetite right now, it's not an imminent issue, but once they get better you should think about setting up a separate tank for your puffers away from the mollies, because GSP's, from a lot of our forum members' experience, nip mollies' fins and some would even polish them off when they feel like it. Both mollies and GSPs will do well in brackish water, so maybe you would like to consider raising your SP slowly with marine salt (not sea salt or aquarium salt) right now. The other really important thing that you can do is to do large water changes as often as you can. Pristine water is the key to puffers' health on top of a nutritious diet.

As far as feeding goes, you could try what the other members have already suggested above. I hope they eat soon!

And welcome to the forum!

Thanks for all your advice guys i moved the mollies out when i got home from yesterday

but unfortunately i lossed both puffers yesterday i checked all parameters also and they were nitrates 0 amonia 0 and ph was 7.5 no salt tho

maybe it was to late due to the poor state

but if you guys think it could of been anything else please let me know

Thanks again for all your support

I think just being skinny and half dead when you got them is what did them in. It is a nice sentiment that you wanted to save them, but I don't think there is anything that you could have done to save them. When getting puffers, its always best to get the healthiest looking ones you can find. They are finicky at best, and being in good condition when you get them is only going to help you out. Sounds mean, but its a sad truth. Puffers in bad conditions just don't seem to make it.

Hope this does not sour your puffer experience. Now you have found TPF, have a good read up in the Pufferpedia, and see what kind of puffers you would best be able to care for.

Yeah, it's hard to lose them!

Now you have support from TPF, you can try over again with healthy puffer. I don't think that you killed them, like julianchan said, their poor health didn't contribute to the success.

Set up a new tank, a larger one, cycle it, and look for a healthy puffer.