The Puffer Forum

My GSP is about 6 months old now and he is the same size as when i got him (1.5 inches)
he has been acclimated over to full marine over the first 2 months and now resides in a 55 gallon FOWLR tank
He has never had an eating problem and constantly overeats (therefore eating is not the problem) He never quarrels with any of the other fish or inverts. (2 clowns cleaner shrimp goby and hermits)
The tank is plenty large has excellent filtration and water conditions and much rockwork.
Is there such a thing as a dwarf gsp? Why hasnt he gotten any bigger? He acts perfectly normal

GSPs grow really slowly. I bought mine at about 1.5" two years ago and she's only about 3" now. Most people report the same thing.

It's odd as to how these fish are classed. There are different spot variations and from the looks of it different growth rates. Unless some are being stunted somehow during handeling. Some people say theirs grow to almost full grown in about 2 years and some people's gsps dont grow fast at all. Some have only large spots and some have large and alot of smaller spots.

thanks guys thats good to know I wasnt really worried but i was confused, so thanks for clearing that up

I wondering if it has anything to do with the fact it's in FSW?

Fsw? Fresh to sw? Idk?

Full Salt Water

Oic thx

I've been wondering about the growth rate of smaller GSPs in full saltwater... I had my last one in a marine tank and he pretty much stopped growing completely. I had him for a little over two years and he was a little under 4" when he died.

From another thread there was talk that there may be a few species variations in GSP's, sub-species. I've read differing accounts on how these guys thrive in SW and I wonder if it's by subspecies or are people taking their GSP's up too fast?

I'm starting to believe one of the species is either smaller or much slower growing, and there may well be more than two.

I need to take some closeup pictures, but I believe the shape of Shakespeare and Jillybeans nose danglers are distinctly different in form. Are nose danglers subject to significant morphological variations between specimens of the same species?

im interested to see this thread grow a little bit, and be even more interested if we found out somehow that there are many sub species and differences. my GSP was 1 1/2 inches in FW when i got him, had him about two months before i started my conversion to SW. he probably grew about 1/2 an inch in that time. but it seemed once he started getting more and more salt in his water over a few weeks, he started spurting, a lot. i have had him just over a year(1 1/2 inches when i first got him) and hes now about 4 inches with just his body, not including the tail.

also, i had a second GSP(sold to a friend for his tank) that i posted questions on MFK about because that one seemed different than my current one. the body shape was a tiny bit different and the head was a little different. seemed a little more pointy than the one i have now. he seems a little more rounded.