The Puffer Forum

Hello all,

I recently gave into my BF's request to get fish. Only after purchasing them AND a brand new tank did I realize Im going to be the one taking care of them. As I do my homework, I am learning a lot and how misinformed we were. I am wondering how good of a chance my GSP's have at surviving. When I bought them about 2 1/2 weeks ago, I was looking for the brightest & liveliest. Puffy starting showing signs of stress by clamping and got really dull, even bending into the U shape until I increased the salinity level to what it is now. He is back to his bright hues, but he is extremely timid when I walk in the room. The other, Hootie, seems to already be comfortable with me since he comes to greet me, (probably begging more than greeting).

Currently we cannot afford much more until another week or two, so to check water ammonia, nitrate & etc will have to be during the weekends with petco. Is there anything low budget that I might be able to incorporate now to ensure they live?!? HELP

I have a 10 gallon tank
Sg at 1.020 as of this week
Began krill diet about 2 days ago, since the wal-mart rep told us flakes were fine.

welcome to the forum

for now... run and grab a bottle of Dr. Tims and a bottle of Prime. Follow the directions on the bottles for each.


Ditch the krill, any other mollusk is fine..

Suggested Reading:
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=28566
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=28649

Start bumping your salinity up .002 per week ASAP and use some medicine to treat for IP's as Walmart GSP's are in very horrid conditions and are very stressed. I even used Melafix and put it in the water as well to help with any nipped fins and bite wounds. Please note that they can get up to 6-7 inches which is the size of a small football so please try to invest in a 29-55 gallon tank at the minimum with extra filtration as GSP's technically require high end brackish to marine water conditions and a minimum of 30 gallons per fish once they exceed 2 inches due to their high bio load and aggressive nature. I got mine from Walmart 3 months ago and they did not look too great but they are now very happy and healthy in a 55 gallon tank with a salinity of 1.016 with multiple sources of filtration.



If you are on a tight budget check out http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites as you can often find decent aquarium setups for dirt cheap. I got a 55 gallon setup for $100 and a 150 gallon for $400 on there before.

Start bumping your salinity up .002 per week ASAP

Sg at 1.020 as of this week

???

So glad you found us!!! Is that SG correct? If it is, they are in saltwater now. To keep them from poisoning themselves with their own waste, you are going to have to be doing 80% water changes every day on that tank until you can get a larger one. If you can afford to get Dr Tim's or Bio-Spira, place it directly into the filter & do not do a WC for 2 days. Eventually they will need a minimum of 60 gallons but even if you can find a used 30g on Craigslist for now, they'd last a good while in there. Please read the links provided above.

Thank you so much! I've been so worried! Especially after hearing several horror stories on walmarts fish conditions!

Yes, the sg is at 1.020 I was doing 50% so I will definitely increase the WC. with WC do I replace the marine salt as well?

I feel much more confident with all of your help! And at least I know I'm starting on a somewhat good foot considering the conditions. I plan on getting to a larger tank asap also. They're about 1" but I can tell puffy will try to dominate now that he is feeling better!

Thank you so much again, you have been the most informative site I have been able to find!!

Yes, it is going to be very $$$ to be constantly replacing the salt at that SG. It would be cheaper to find a much larger tank (to dilute their wastes) & cycle it with one of the 2 products I mentioned above. DO NOT LET ANY SHOP CONVINCE YOU TO BUY ANY OTHER PRODUCT, THEY DO NOT WORK!!!

+1 to PP's comments and while searching for a used tanks also look for live rock. The live rock is your filtration of choice in a SW tank. 1.5 lbs per gallon. You can use the FW filters without media or sponge only to keep the flow, but I'd look for some decent powerheads. Also consider 2 tanks... 30 gals for each puffer or 1 60+ gal to home them both.

Pufferpunk wrote:

Start bumping your salinity up .002 per week ASAP

Sg at 1.020 as of this week

???

My bad, misread and thought it was 1.002. (I had just woke up if you saw my posting time) Wasn't trying to intentionally feed people bad info.

@Ipufferthebeach you should check out these threads:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=29886
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29930

Don't feel bad a lot of us were in the same boat as you at one point.

As for the food, what has been working for me is a variety of bloodworms, small crabs, gut loaded ghost shrimp, earthworms, frozen shrimp and clams on a half shell thawed in vitamin water or their tank water. (the last two you can easily get at an asian supermarket or a seafood market)

Also check around at various pet stores that have aquariums for any pest snails that they may be able to give to you. I got close to 500 snails at my local Petsmart last week.

Thank you so much everyone!!! I feel confident especially with support like you!!

Just keep on top of water quality and you will be fine. This may mean daily waterchanges, sorry it does mean daily waterchanges. Do you have access to live rock?

I don't want to complicate things but would it be worth reclimatising the GSP's to a lower saltiness. It would save on the cost of salt being used every water change

Arny wrote:I don't want to complicate things but would it be worth reclimatising the GSP's to a lower saltiness. It would save on the cost of salt being used every water change

Wouldn't it kill them? I thought once they are in saltwater they must always be in saltwater.

Not really. They do migrate to lower sg or even FW to spawn. That's y the younger ones are caught in FW and how the misconception of they are FW came about.

bertie 83 wrote:Do you have access to live rock?

yes, I was advised by the LFS I shouldn't get it until I cycle the larger tank. They sell both cured and uncured & said I could incorporate the cured into my existing tank. But I wasn't sure