The Puffer Forum

I had a 10 Gallon freshwater tank that had various fish in it including convicts and giant danois. I took that established tank, removed the convicts and as many danios I could catch, and started a brackish ten gallon tank with a GSP about 1 1/2"long. I added 1 gallon of water containing 1/4 cup of Instant Ocean to the tank and used the hydrometer to test water. It is about 1.006-1.007. I will take 1/4 of the water out and replace it with more Instant Ocean bringing it up to 1.008-1.010 tomorrow night or Sunday. I'm have a Topfin 20 and a whisper 10 on the tank for filtration. The bottom is a silicate white sand with a few Dwarf Hairgrass plants throughout the bottom and three pads of Taiwan Moss. No cave or structure of any kind, but I do have a nice piece of driftwood. I think I have what I need to Start it out and for the fish's health, but since I am new to all of this, I know I still need help. Please feel free to let me know what I've done right or wrong and what I need to do to change/improve on.
Thanks in advance

I hate to be the one to tell you this, the beneficial bacteria in your tank cannot handle sg swings like that. You should only raise by 0.002 per week. You will have knocked your bacteria out causing your tank to no longer be cycled. You are gonna have some work ahead of you. I would dilute the salt out and once you are near to f/w add some filter media from another of your tanks or you will end up with very sick puffers. Save the sg raising until you have them housed in a much larger tank.

Welcome

I'm not sure if you know this or not but you're going to need a bigger tank for the GSP. The minimum for one GSP is 30gallons, though if you were planning to go full marine at any point, bigger would definitely be better with the space that would be taken up with live rock.

I've just finished setting up a tank as full marine for a GSP (probably) and am new to this as well so I'm just offering advice I've received since I've been apart of this forum.

bertie 83 wrote:I hate to be the one to tell you this, the beneficial bacteria in your tank cannot handle sg swings like that. You should only raise by 0.002 per week. You will have knocked your bacteria out causing your tank to no longer be cycled. You are gonna have some work ahead of you. I would dilute the salt out and once you are near to f/w add some filter media from another of your tanks or you will end up with very sick puffers. Save the sg raising until you have them housed in a much larger tank.

Thanks a lot! I will do that tonight. I did all of this according to my LFS and assumed they knew what they were telling me. Man and I researched this a lot too with them. This wasn't a spur of the moment thing either. Oh well wish I had found this forum BEFORE salting the tank.

Too bad you didn't find this site 1st, in your research. You would have needed to look no further. ;

library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
library/water-filtration/emergencycycle/
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19348

If your gsps are babies they should be fine in. 10g ...just dont move too late. Yoy may have a gsp mma fight. . Or an ammonia chamber if they out grow it. As of now youre ok for maybe a month or 2

I would leave everything freshwater for the time they are in the 10g because there is gonna be some large frequent water changes...And FW will make it much easier. After the GSPs are in their larger tank then start increasing the SG. Welcome to the site and good luck.

JRC3 wrote:I would leave everything freshwater for the time they are in the 10g because there is gonna be some large frequent water changes...And FW will make it much easier. After the GSPs are in their larger tank then start increasing the SG. Welcome to the site and good luck.

+1 keep them in freshwater until the permanent tank is setup. Its a PITA to slowly acclimate tank from freshwater to marine water IMO. Another option is to just setup a marine tank and drip acclimate your puffer. Less time consuming, mixing, salt, measuring and worrying if you destroy your beneficial bacteria.

defool89 wrote:If your gsps are babies they should be fine in. 10g ...just dont move too late. Yoy may have a gsp mma fight. . Or an ammonia chamber if they out grow it. As of now youre ok for maybe a month or 2

Please stop giving misleading info here! 10g is only good for a single 1" GSP.

Lfs are generally low on real info. Sometimes lessons are learnt the hard way, luckily you are in a strong position to correct it before any harm is done. I know it's already been said but a much larger tank needs to be first priority, you can follow this with a slow sg raise of 0.002 per week until you hit the desired sg. Good luck and don't forget we love swing pics lol show em off.