The Puffer Forum

Hello IM wondering if anyone can help me as although I'm not new to fish keeping i'm new to Puffers.

I recently purchased a GSP which I intended to house in a community setup with caution. the water chemistry was as follows:

ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 18, ph 7.8

Sadly the gsp died within 24 hours , the shop did replace him with a F8 but again the same thing happened which as you can imagine is quite upsetting and difficult to understand as all else is ok in the tank. The only thing that I can think of is that i have have a breeding pair of kribs that have a young brood of 5.

P.s is salt a must?

Your water parameters (except for the lack of salt, marine saltwater mix like Instant Ocean is necessary for the long term health of both GSPs and F8s) are OK. However, puffers really are NOT community fish, and a GSP needs high brackish/or light marine conditions when an adult.

What size tank do you have? Breeding kribs can be very nasty...especially to any fish willing to enter their territory when spawning. I had a pair of kribs that controlled an entire 29 gallon tank and systematically started taking out tank members one at a time during spawning (I just had a few dither fish and a clown pleco at the time).

Eric

This may be a stupid question but did you cycle the tank?

Both GSP's and F-8 puffers are not community fish. GSP's can grow to 6"+, require BW and eventually SW as adults, and need 30+ gallons per fish.
F-8's can live in lower salinity BW, but again, are not really community fish, and require 15+ gallons per fish.

What size tank do you have?

Puffers, really, are best suited for species only setups.

Either the killed them, or you are getting bad stock. How did they look? Did they eat at all? How big is the tank?

The tank that the puffer(s) were housed in was a Juwel Rio 180 (180l)that has a matured filter and no history of any problems. The first puffer didn't eat a thing in is brief spell with me the second puffer was alot more lively and was into his food.