The Puffer Forum

ok so here's the deal... I currently have a 30 gallon tank with GSP's and F8's.. THe current PH stays at around 7.0-7.5 ... Now I just got a new 75 gallon tank and I want to make it a brackish tank and eventuall ymove my puffers over to that one.. so far in the tank there is aragonite sand which makes the PH 8.5... Now what should I do in order my fish are safe to put in that tank without geiving them a shock.. Do I still need to add marine salt in my 75 gallon with the aragonite sand to make it brackish? Will my puffer's get to shocked moving them in the brackish water when the PH is 8.5 and they are used to 7.5? Please brackish experts need some advice!

Hi there,

How do you do this? Ah:



Others will be around to help you better than I. I'd suggest you have a look in the library and general brackish forum posts and get back to us with any questions Have a look at your species in the PufferPedia, too - loads of info in there.

It's brilliant you have such a good size tank to start with (the 75g)

What i'd do is set up the 75g and fishless cycle it so the filters are ok at whatever degree of salinity you decide to go for, maybe using the refrigerated bacteria you can get there (I'm in the UK). Bio spora? Dr's Foster and Smith? If that's too expensive, you could either use 3ppm ammonia (pure from a hardware store) or borrow some filter media with live bacteria from a brackish tank from someone you know not to have disease in their tank.

Or just add a prawn and wait a month or so. There are links to fishless cycling here:

library/?s=cycling

I presume your tank is freshwater right now - GSP's like high end brackish water (halfway to pure seawater at least) right up to full marine. Your figure eights only like salt up to a salinity of 1.004. Much lower than GSP's so the two shouldn't be kept together at adulthood or even when quite young. Pure seawater has a specific gravity of 1.025. That's about 35 grams of salt in a litre of water. An sg of 1.004 is about 450g of salt in a litre.

Yes, you do need to add marine salt (not aquarium salt) to get brackish water

Puffers are very adaptable - a GSP could be dripped from fresh water to full marine in 24 hrs if the salty water was added literally dropwise - 0.001 sg units per hour. But you couldn't do the same with your filters - the bacteria can only survive a change in sg of 0.002 per week.

It's a lot to take in to start with, but totally worth it.

Good luck

I think I would cycle the new tank as fresh water - maybe using some of the filter media from the current tank to speed the process. Then when the puffer is settled in the new tank & the water parameters are stable, start upping the SG when you do water changes each week. I don't really think that the differing pH will be an issue. Certainly you must use marine salt to make in brackish, but it doesn't need to be the most expensive. Just make sure the SG is raised slowly & by no more than 0.002 each week, so that you don't kill off the good bacteria in the filter.

Out of interest, how many GSP's and figure 8's do you have and do they seem ok? You obviously have fishkeeping experience and know pH due to your readings - just wondering if your filters in the tank they are in now are mature?

If so, fine. Even if freshwater for now. You may be aware that puffers don't handle any ammonia or nitrite very well, so may need to keep an eye on these parameters and change water as needed to keep these levels at zero. Is there any nitrate? More than 0 but less than 20ppm is good

Puffs are very messy feeders and generate a lot of waste, so lots of filtration is needed. And water changes 50% per week, with dechlorinator. Prime seems to be good.

They also like 'crunchy food' like aquarium snails or pond snails, only about the size of the puffs eye. That keeps their teeth ground down and they love blackworms or earthowrms. Mussels or prawns are not so good because of an enzyme in them that takes out vitamin D in their bodies. Vita chem vitamin supplement is very useful.

They also like the higher end of the tropical fish temp scale 78 - 83F ish.

Sorry to blast you with info, trying to get what I can into a nutshell

And hope I don't scare you off

Nice one, bigfatfish

I suppose it depend on how big the tank they are in right now is. Quite right. Bigger the better as fast as possible and the fw bacterial media should be there. These fish may be small but they get stunted easily.

I'm just doing it the other way around beacuse I'm starting from a 40g brackish with one gsp in and a 15g QT with the other and going full marine in that 240l of mine using LR etc from an existing marine tank.

Puffer_newb has GSP's and F8's in a 30g.

Puffer_newb you could do the fw filter maturation on the new tank and have your F8's in one tank, the GSP's in the other? If you split them you have the option of keeping bumblebee gobies in the F8 tank, maybe orange chromide cichlids if enough room. Then you have the option of going full marine if you wished with the GSP's again given enough room in the 75g.

Your choice but to me these are among the most rewarding fish I have kept Quirkier than Oscars and probably more interesting than seahorses!

BTW sorry for info rant - if someone did this to me I'd probably go off and take up golf or something. Almostc

HTH

Hmm.. Well I acutally can't use the 30 gallon tank for long because it has a leak in it.. that is the main reason why I upgraded to the 75..

So are you guys saying there is absoutly no way to keep F8's and GSP's together? even if I keep the SG at say.. 1.008 ?

To the best of my knowledge, 1.004 is ok for both for several months. If they are small. But GSP's are born on the reef and just migrate for protection upstream. The F8's cannot really go higher than 1.004. The GSP's might last a while there but may not be in the best of conditions for them.

How many do you have?

Do you know how to fix the tank with silicone? We might be able to help...

I have I believe 3 GSP's and 4 figure 8's... or it could be the other way around lol.. but anyway yea I know it's a lot of puffers but will probably sell some as they get bigger and fill the tank..

i'm not sure how to fix leaky tanks, i was going to try to figure it out when I move the fish to a 75 gallon =/

How bad is the leak? A trickle or...

If your 30g is leaking - can you do a water change on the 75g - 100% ish with dechlorinator then transfer the entire contents of your 30 to it? Water, filters, substrate, fish and all? Or just half fill, add your entire tank contents and top up?

That will take the stress of of you! The fish will have had a good water change

As for the pH, you could place them in a bucket and 'drip' the new water in or use a clean cup to transfer water slowly to acclimatise.

Please shout if any more q's