The Puffer Forum

I want to learn about ceylons. how big do they get, what is their minimum tank size, exactly what sp range do they prefer, what plants could I keep with them, and what tank mates could I possibly have?

pretty much the same as a GSP. get about the same size, i would go a little more gallons for min tank size than a GSP. high brackish to marine and tankmates are really dependent on the puff being more or less aggressive

+1 to the above. A larger tank is always better and if you go marine it will benefit both you and your puffer long term.

I have one. It's about 5 years old now. Always been in a 55 gallon. It's about the size of a small Nerf football, 6 inches or so long. They live in fresh water for the first year (ish) and then you have to start moving them to high end brackish, even full marine. Mine is currently in a tank with the salt at 1.017. They have very strong beaks. I feed mine Malaysian Trumpet snails on a regular basis.

would they survive in half strength sea water; salt at 1.010? also what plants/ decor could be added?

i would say for best health they would be better in high end brackish - marine, their care is literally almost exact to the GSP. im no plant expert so i cant comment on that, but if you got into the marine side and had a nice t5 with reflectors, or pc lighting you can possibly try some corals. again i am no expert on those either. with my GSP in full marine i went FOWLR(fish only with live rock, incase you werent sure what that meant), so my tank had a aragonite sand/crushed coral mix substrate, some marine-ish looking fake plants lol and my live rock. i also had a small fake octopus in there also before i downgraded my tank, i had one of the big colliseum(sp?) ornaments that held up pretty well in the saltwater

+1 to going marine with live rock. The extra £££s will be save in salt in the long run

not wanting to go marine. what is another medium sized puffer that is truly brackish? I want to do a medium to strong strength 55 gallon brackish puffer tank that has mangroves and java fern in it.

Why not just go figure 8?

Figure 8 would be your choice for long term brackish, but not at 1.010.
1.003, No higher than 1.005.
We want our fish to thrive. Survive indicates some hardship is endured, but still living.
Off hand, I don't know of a puffer that is optimally kept at 1.010 long term. I might be wrong, but I thought mangroves live in high end brackish through to twice the salinity of seawater.
There are more fish and plant options at low end brackish, a lot of the mid brackish fish tend to get fairly gigantic.
But, there is very cute fish that you can keep at any level between 1.005 - 1.015, a mudskipper. I've always wanted to keep mudskippers.

okay then. and what I meant was not wanting go marine with this particular tank hehe.

Now I'm wanting to plan a mudskipper vivarium...
Didn't you really want a F8 to begin with?

yeah but then i saw a toby unless f8 an mud skippers could get along

I would say unlikely

grrrrr. that's what I thought. I might actually not go salt after all after seeing the price of live rock! So it looks like f8's are probably going to be my thing. what do you guys think?