The Puffer Forum

I just got a new gsp from my lfs. his name is Ralph. he is thee inches long but very fat. he looks like an overinflated football. is he too fat? are there any "low-fat" diets i can put him on?

I think once puffers get older they plump up. Atleast I hope they're supposed to. My GSP is very round, not like a protruding fat belly. His whole body is round.

How fat? Got pics?

i will try to get a dig camera and get a pic. he is about 3" long and about 1.5" thick.

how long will he get before i need to go marine?

At about 4". He should be in fairly high-end BW by now. Have you read the article about them in our Library?

Yeah im am saving up for everythimg i need for salt

What SG is he in now? What are you saving for?

i just got him and he is in 1.002. very light. i would like to slowly acclimate him to full marine soon. my buddy who had a bunch of GSPs said that you can used drip method to slowly acclimate them. he said it takes about 24 hours. that way i could just get all i need for marine now, and set the tank up for a while before i put him in since he is going into a larger tank soon.

You should acclimate them over a course of months, uping SG no more than .002 per week, not 24 hours.

my buddy does the drip and has yet to lose a GSP as a result of it. he usually raises the sg of the water up until a few weeks in advance to reduce the jump.

I'm not sure how you're friend does it, maybe with Bio-spira, but doing it that fast will kill off your bio filtration, causing serious problems. NIMFT.

The GSP should be able to handle the relatively quick change in SG. This will likely cause your tank to crash though and you will then have to either add SW Bio-Spira or do large, frequent water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrites down. You fish will suffer during this period and may come down with any number of ailments. You have plenty of time. Why not slowly raise the SG of the tank rather than take a chance?

Yes, as ybenormal said, the puffer can handle the salinity changes but your tank cycle can not. Your friend probably does the drip method when introducing a new fish to an established tank.

If you just change the salinity all at once, you kill all the bacteria and your puff will have to suffer through a cycling tank.. and puffers don't handle cycling tanks very well.

BTW, I don't want to start a friend-bashing session but "my buddy who had a bunch of GSPs" does not strike me as being strong justification for following the quick-acclimation process. Since GSPs require at least 30 gallons each and can live for 15 years or longer, your friend either is an older person that has had lots of very large tanks, only kept the GSPs for short periods of time, or the GSPs lived shorter than normal lives.

Furthermore, I think that unnecessary stressing of puffers is at best a poor course of action. I'd take it slow.