The Puffer Forum

Hello.

I have a 90 gallon tank. 4 green spotted puffer's in there. I started with one.. and he is about the same size as he was when we got him...over a year ago! Im guessing he was about an inch when we got him, now he is about an inch an a half.
he has more spots than the others, and he is smaller.. maybe not so 'torpedoish' shaped, rounder i suppose.

any way about four months of having the tiny little guy in the 90 gallon by him self, I ran into two much larger GSP's that I just couldn't pass up. they were about 3 inches, maybe 2 3/4 in. but anyway I was a bit worried putting them with the smaller one, but everything went well and they all get along. then of course I was at...yeah..I know... WALMART of all places and there was this cute little guy with a couple other sickly guys. I DIDNT buy him (at the time)... but I did keep an eye on him and when he was the only one left, a couple weeks later... he was getting thinner and thinner... I broke down a bought him. so now we have four.

Long story short.

-One puffer for 1 and around a half year. is about 1 and a half inches long. (much smaller spots than the common GSP)
-two GSP's acquired 4 months later around 2 and a half to three inches (closer to three). (bought larger) still around the same size.
-and last but not leist. the walmart fish. He was bought around 2 months from the larger one's. but he was the size of the smaller one. now he is almost the same size of the larger ones.

so for almost 2 years now. our original GSP is still no bigger than 1 and a 1/2 inches... the lat one I bought. (literally 5-6 months ago) has already out grown the little guy buy at least an inch plus some.

so the question is....why is the first fish not growing as fast as the others?

It's very well possible that what we now call GSP in trade are actually at least 3 different species or sub species or regional variants. Let's see how your puffers develop. I've had similar experiences in the past: Some staying small for many years, even in pristine water, brackish and marine salinity, insanely large tanks and sufficient feeding and some growing easily beyond 4 inches in a few years under the same care. At higher age these variants look very different and I guess the Giant spotted puffers you see in the puffer pedia also looked like GSP when young.

I have a couple of GSP's and one of the two has big spots and little spots and I keep thinking he's something different, although as you say Corvus, could just be a variant of the GSP. The other one just has big spots, the same as the two in the first pictures above. So who knows, it remains to be seen when he gets bigger, but for what it's worth, the GSP with the larger spots is also much larger than the one with the 2 different sized spots.

(Spots, spots and more spots!)

The GSP species covers a very large geographic area, and there are multiple regional variants in markings,as already said earlier in this thread. If and when the puffer's taxonomy is revisited and revised, these variants may or may nor all end up carrying the same species name. Some populations may be sufficiently isolated to become subspecies or even independent species. However,to date all reported in the hobby reach about the same size.

Puffers are in general very easy to stunt. We have no way of knowing the history of individual fish in a store's tanks. Also, being wild-caught, they are subject to intestinal and other parasites which can markedly slow growth and also result in stunting.

The bottom line here for the hobbyist is that all new puffer purchases should be isolated (quarantined) until you are certain that they are both eating well and gaining body mass. There are articles in the library here on feeding puffers and on dealing with parasite issues. You might want to review those.

HTH