The Puffer Forum

ok so i'm doing this because i'm curious and so is my friend who wants to try keeping puffers. he really wants figure eights, but is scared of going brackish, and has always heard that they do well in freshwater. so how many people on here keep them in fresh, and how keep them in brackish. and by keep i mean happy healthy puffers, no black tummies or hiding all the time. you can keep it anonymous, but please vote so i can see the numbers. thanks everyone.

I've always kept mine in low brackish (1.003ish).

There is a lot of belief that they don't NEED brackish water, just very hard water, and adding the little bit of salt to bring it up to a low salinity buffers it nicely to their needs. So if your friend has very, very hard water, they could probably get away with it. But they'd want to keep an eye on bellies, etc of course and to have levels that low its pretty dang easy to handle adding salt.

If he has softer water, I would recommend adding the salt for sure though.

What Myaj said! Though I did keep mine at SG1.005 for a while.

2 Tablespoons of salt per 10litres isn't too hard or expensive.

I keep my F8's in freshwater, they always do fine for me and they enjoy hanging out with BeeBoo, my MBU. I do have other brackish tanks, so it's not as if I don't know how to do brackish or don't want to. It's just a matter of me personally keeping my F8's in freshwater. I know that most people don't agree and don't believe in doing that, but that's how I keep mine, however I don't push other people to do the same.

I keep my F8 in a 30 gallon tank with an SG of 1.008.

And don't forget, each fish can be different too.

My Figure 8 did better in low brackish (1.003) than he did in freshwater, but if you took him up to 1.008, he was much more listless and didn't look so happy.

thanks for the input everyone. i'll pass the info onto my friend. he was able to pick up an old 10 gallon from his friend and has it set up and cycling now. i'll let you know what he chooses. thanks again everyone

Mine are currently still in a freshwater because I'm trying to let some of the plants grow a bit more in hopes they wont completely when I go to brackish. Planning on going up to about 1.005. It all depends on how I see them doing.

I keep both of my F8s in very low end brackish (2g/L), I wish I could afford marine salt (it's too much expensive around here). I hope they are fine with that.

side19 wrote:thanks for the input everyone. i'll pass the info onto my friend. he was able to pick up an old 10 gallon from his friend and has it set up and cycling now. i'll let you know what he chooses. thanks again everyone

10g isn't enough swim room for one.

seems like it is. mine is in a 12 and seems perfectly happy and has enough room.

we got a lil f8 at work in our display tank 80g all freshwater community of mixd stuff he seems happy but very shy,

DarkStorm wrote:we got a lil f8 at work in our display tank 80g all freshwater community of mixd stuff he seems happy but very shy,

Might he be bullied by your other fish?