The Puffer Forum

Got the GSP to eat today! He ate mysis shrimp today, will try blood worms tomorrow, and snails Wednesday.
Anyone know of any good cleanup crews for GSP's? After feeding him in that large tank I think I'm going to need something to eat excess food that gets lost in the large tank.
Also is pufferpedia up yet? I thought I read a post about someone reading through the library, and am wondering if it's just my computer or not.

No, PufferPedia is down. I don't know of any brackish water clean up fish that would make the brackish to marine transition along with the GSP, but once you acclimate him to full saltwater you could get a sleeper goby or a blenny.

already in full marine! Will have to look into sleeper goby's.

Also try cheap hermits and snails

Mine actually leaves all the ghost shrimps alone in her tank

Any goby will be easy pickings for pufferteeth, considering how they lay around a lot.

Would a Mollie clean up after a puff...assuming the puff doesn't "clean up" the Mollie...lol. I know Seven keeps a Mollie with Balki. When I had a Mollie that thing ate everything! I know it's not considered a "cleanup crew" but anything that will catch bits of food that the gsp throws around would help. Plus I hear mollies like algae. I might try to add a mollie to Marty's tank...she the "nicer" of my gsp's.

You've answered your own question; it could work, or it could be eaten.

But will a Mollie typically eat the mess a puff makes? I've only had one that lasted about a week before Gizzy bit his face off. Not sure if the one I had was a pig or if they all eat like that.

They do have good appetites. But, they can pester, that can lead to the face removal.

Cleaner Shrimp are good from my experience. You won't even find puffer poops in the aquarium. The only problem is that they want to check the puffer for parasites. My GSP wasnt happy about that so he grumped around all day long. Hermits work until the puffer figures out they are pretty good as a food source which mine did recently. Luckily they are not expensive.

To quote RTR, "Puffers don't have tank mates, they have swimming food reserves!" Keeping any type of shrimp with a GSP is asking for trouble for the shrimp. You may want to look in to larger urchins and fish that are as aggressive as the GSP if you are looking for someone to house him with. Most clean up crews disappear after a short time, mine picked everything I had in with it to death....

I spoke to soon yesterday, woke up today and my big electric blue hermit was in pieces

xrayjeeper83 wrote:I spoke to soon yesterday, woke up today and my big electric blue hermit was in pieces

Trick is not to overfeed. Also, have a good flow going, so the food doesn't settle & is picked up by the skimmer. Also, be sure you have lots of lil pods to eat the leftovers, which come in live rock & seeded sand.

Will most definitely be getting pods in the tank. Planning on getting a mandarin in the non-puffer tank, so will be buying them anyways to seed the tank.
Ate bloodworms today, and is looking nice and plump! Coloration is getting much brighter, and I'm feeling pretty good about the whole transition. Still have not gotten him to eat a snail yet, any tips? The tank is huge, and the snails just drop to the bottom of the tank where I can't see them(live rock). The puffer may or may not be eating them once they fall, but he doesn't immediately chase them. How long would a ramshorn snail survive in saltwater? I'm wondering if I need to try handfeeding or not, he's just not noticing them.
Still trying to come up with something to work as a cleanup grew, might try a shrimp, seeing as there is a ton of live rock/space in the tank, I'm sure something could avoid getting eaten with all the space in there.
Thanks for all the help!