The Puffer Forum

hello everyone just thought I would introduce myself! name is matt from Arizona and I recently got 2 green spotted puffers. they are currently housed in a 70gallon tall tank (36"x30"x15") with poolsand bottom, fluval 404, and a marineland maxijet for a little extra water movement since the tank is so deep.



don't worry, the decorations are not permenant. need to wait till I get paid again before I can convince the woman to let me go get some big pieces of lace rock to throw in there. (they might come back out around Halloween time though....)

the tank I got from a friend for $30 and the stand is a repurposed waterbed frame.

not sure what the exact salinity is right now, initial mixture was 5 gallons of saltwater to ~65 fresh.

other plans for the tank aside from the lace rock include a "freshwater" moray and maybe a second filter...

I do realize I will probably need a bigger tank at some point, but that's all part of the master plan to take over my living room... and slowly convert to a reef setup :evil laugh:

so yea that's about it, right now the puffers are a little over an inch each and doing well (even though one got sucked into a powerhead his 2nd day in, which is why I converted to to a circulation pump style head) oh, and the other occupants are 3 mollies hat are almost a year old but for some reason never grew more than 1/2" big.

currently feeding everyone frozen blood worms 1x a day.

and incase you were curious heres the other tank you see in the relfection (55g planted)

Welcome to the forum. You need to be able to accurately measure salinity or you will be heading for potential disaster. I would not add any other fish to the tank as territories may be an issue in a tall tank.

+1 to Bertie's advice. Puffers are difficult to manage in tall narrow tanks, and do not play well with others.

A couple of things.... you say frozen worms. I hope you are defrosting those 1st? I defrost in vitamin water (soaked in Vita-Chem) & then drain thru a brine shrimp net. Also, puffers need a CRUNCH, varied diet: library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/

More info for you about GSPs: library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/

BW mixing: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19348

The worms get thawed in RO water from my water machine and allowed to cool before feeding of course. And a hydrometer is on my list to buy next week with the rock. Will also be setting up a snail tank hereas soon as I find somewhere to put it, same guy I got tank from has his tank overrun at the moment so supply is no issue.

Did wake up to find the one that got sucked into the power head curled up in a little ball on the floor of the tank this morning not looking very happy, so we'll see how he's doing when I get home today....

No filter screen on the intake tube?

Like I said, that's why I switched to a circulation pump

Its a decent setup for 2 GSP's, possibly 3. I would strongly recommend you reconsider going full reef though, GSP's will nip at and kill many corals and your clean up crew. And since they are messy eaters that produce a lot of waste, and corals need pristine water, its not the best situation to be trying to raise corals. I can't see a moray eel and GSP working out in any way other than either the moral being nipped to death or choking on a puffed GSP.. but can't say that I have any experience with the combo. Just sounds like a disaster.

Get the hydrometer asap, they are only a couple bucks and if you change the salinity too fast you can crash the tank. Its probably your best purchase you can make right now, as well as getting them some snails to crunch.

Well he seems to be doing OK again, I have noticed a little bit of white fuzz, not sure if its scar tissue or what? He is very active and very hungry still.

I will be getting a hydrometer today and setting up a snail tank this weekend. Probably going to stock my 55 with ghost shrimp as well in hopes of getting a colony started.

Well he seems to be doing OK again, I have noticed a little bit of white fuzz, not sure if its scar tissue or what? He is very active and very hungry still.

I will be getting a hydrometer today and setting up a snail tank this weekend. Probably going to stock my 55 with ghost shrimp as well in hopes of getting a colony started.

So I got my hydrometer today, SG is at 1.005 as it sits right now and got about 45lbs of lace rock to replace the cheesyness.

I will be doing a water change tomorrow and post some more pictures with the lace rock in place