The Puffer Forum

I got a new puffer its a fig 8. I have him in a 20g. He was at the lfs in PURE freshwater and i want to slowly acclimate him to brackish. I need all the direction you can give me I'm oblivious to brackish but i had to save him. What do yall suggest, a teaspoon of marine salt?

Raise the sg by 0.002 per week, is the tank cycled?

Is the puffer healthy looking? If this is a new tank set up wait until it is cycled, don't freak out and start throwing in salt

Here is an article for mixing brackish water
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19348

So do how do i mesure .002 a week? Do i throw in a pinch of salt and see what that gets me?

Yes cycled tank. It was one i used to keep tetras

Do you have a hydrometer?

purplecandle wrote:Do you have a hydrometer?

No i have no hydro meter

When did you remove the tetras?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19348

defool89 wrote:

purplecandle wrote:Do you have a hydrometer?

No i have no hydro meter

How do you plan to measure the salinity? LOL please don't tell me you plan to taste test the water.

BTW, what kind of salt are you using?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Aquarium-Fish-/ ... c&LH_BIN=1
Get one from your lfs or online, they're pretty inexpensive and absolutely necessary. Use marine salt like Instant ocean or whatever, as long as it's marine, I usually do 1 tbsp at a time until I reach a SG of 1.004 (prefered f8 SG), usually works out to ~1tbsp per 1g, but ALWAYS use a hydrometer to make sure it's at the right number.
Definitely follow the rule of upping SG 1.002 per week, or you'll kill ur bio filter. In general, if you have a 20 gallon tank, 10 gallons of water with a SG of 1.004 added to 10 gallons of FW would get you 1.002 SG BW. Add the 1.004 BW slowly and test the SG when you get 1/2 of the BW into the tank and then again when u put 3/4 in.

The tetras were removed yesterday,i actually still have one in with the puffer. Like i said i have no prior knowledge to salt or brackish so ive never even heard the word hydrometer how much are they? Maybe the taste test will suffice lolol...i bought natural sea salt mix makes 5 gallons.

This msth stuff sounds interesting. It should be easy to start my current SG is 0. Lol

LOL, G S P Freak, check out my link above.

defool89 wrote:The tetras were removed yesterday,i actually still have one in with the puffer. Like i said i have no prior knowledge to salt or brackish so ive never even heard the word hydrometer how much are they? Maybe the taste test will suffice lolol...i bought natural sea salt mix makes 5 gallons.

This msth stuff sounds interesting. It should be easy to start my current SG is 0. Lol

Your current SG is 1.000 (FW). Natural sea salt or marine mix?

Pufferpunk wrote:LOL, G S P Freak, check out my link above.

Gah, I gotta remember all the sources you can link to in this forum lol, I seem to be long-winded for no reason lol XD.
Anyways, hydrometers are around ~10 dollars, so go get yourself one.

Hydrometers are around $10. I think I had ordered mind online at Dr.Fosters and Smith.

You may want to look into a refractometer. Especially if you may have saltwater tanks or even more brackish in the future. They measure salinity as well but are far more accurate. After reading up on both (accuracy mainly) I've finally ordered a refractometer. You can find them on Ebay for like $25.

I'm sure the hydrometer would be fine and you'd need at least that I'm just a little more worried about accuracy in a full saltwater tank that I intend on adding corals to. I wouldn't think it would be as big of a deal in a brackish tank.

Never dealt with brackish and I've just setup my first full marine tank little over a month ago so I'm still learning but thats just my opinion. I wish I would have went straight for the refractometer to begin with.

Defool, calm down. The fish will be ok in fw untill you can buy a hydrometer, the right type of salt and untill you figure out the math...ps it takes hours to mix salt water, so you can't add it tonight anyway. A few more days of fw won't hurt. But rushing into bw unprepaired will hurt.

Focus on keeping the water clean, get the fish eating and active, let the tank "settle", and aquire the things you need to go brackish

Now, do you have any pics!