The Puffer Forum

Okay my lfs has f8s and gsps housed together in complete fresh water..some dude said they do fine in fw if you acclimate them and can do fine in absolute marine as well. I am quite suprised at what he said but i gave him the benefit of the doubt. Is this true? I feel like they are slowly dying.

Ask him if he's kept them that way into their upper teens.

They are all babies. One f8 is just 2" which is the largest one. I can ask him that but the issue is they are all cluless on puffers. Ex. They have an arrowhead puffer labeled as a baby mbu. So i garantee he wont have an answer. I just want to know if i can call em out again on these poor fishies infested with ips and in fw.

Here, some of the LFS occasionally have ceylons at ard 5ins. But, they are always labeled as F8s... GSPs, F8s and Ceylons are always labeled as FW. Brackish is almost never heard of or understood.

I wouldn't waste my time. I was at a LFS where they said they treat all their tanks with copper, just in case... I explained to them how dangerous it was for their puffers. I pointed out the IPs in their GSPs, too. They looked at me like, who did I think I was??? I walked over to their bookshelf & pulled out my article on GSPs that had just come out in the TFH mag. They still didn't believe me.

That is frustrating. People often trust what they hear in pet stores and it can spread misinformation. I hate going to Petco and seeing GSPs kept in fresh water and with other fish.

I'm fortunate to have a good pet store to shop at. The day I went to pick up my F8s I spoke to a staff member I had not met before. He inquired if I knew they were brackish puffers and asked how big my tank was and what I already had in it. I assured him I had done my research and already had a brackish tank set up just for them and that they would never have any other tank mates. I'm glad I have a store locally that keeps animals in more ideal conditions and cares about how they will be treated once they go to their new homes.

So I'm understanding that they would eventually die horribly.

They will not necessarily die horribly, they just will not live out their normal lifespan in FW. In FW, especially in mixed tanks, they will be stunted and short-lived. They also frequently dies from overgrown incisor plates (their fused front teeth) from feeding standard prepared aquarium foods only. Few hobbyists realoze how long most tropicals can live if properly handled.