The Puffer Forum

hi guy’s, I have a 90g aquarium with 3 green spotted puffers and 2 monos in it. It has a 160g Eheim canister filter and a 55g topfin hob filter
Nitrate: 0
Nitrit: 0
Ph:7.5
Kh: 40
GG:180
I do have very hard water where I live.
My 2 green spotted puffers have always had grey bellies and 1 has had a very dark grey belly until I turn off the lights. I have a standard 120$ strip light that goes blue and full daytime so it doesn’t seem to intense. They eat like crazy!, I have another mystery and trumpet snail 30g tank producing tons of snails for them to eat. But mostly they eat blood worms or fresh mussels, frozen shrimp (thawed), octopus and when they can they steal the high quality shrimp pellet I feed my monos. They would truly eat themselves to death if let. Their salinity is at 1.011sg. I use Instant Ocean sea salt and a CORALIFE Deep Six Hydrometer. They come bouncing around the glass at me wherever I am in the room so I know there happy. But my question is why is their belly’s grey on 2 and almost black sometimes on the other. If anyone could help me out it would be greatly appreciated!!

If their bellies go white in the dark & they're swimming/eating normally, I wouldn't worry about it. I do suggest getting everyone into SW conditions, ASAP. That means adding 1 1/2-2lbs cured live rock per gallon to the tank. What substrate is in there? You'll also need a protein skimmer. Then you can remove the canister & HOB filter.

Sorry to tell you, those monos are really not in the right environment. They are schooling fish, that grow the size of a dinner plate. Since 30g MINIMUM is suggested for each puffer ALONE, when everyone is adult size, you're going to be grossly overstocked.

Thank you for the reply Pufferpunk, my substrate is black aquarium sand. I think setting up reef like conditions is going a bit overboard for gsp’s. I will take the monos out once they are getting too big, but for now they are still pretty small. If anyone knows what’s causing them to have grey bellies that would be awesome. The puffers are still around 2 and a half inches so putting them in full Marin would be premature. Thanks to anyone who can help and give opinions!

my substrate is black aquarium sand

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Here's your answer! Puffers are adept at camouflage & will try to match their surroundings.

As far as not wishing to go SW--if you don't, when those puffers are the size of 2 Nerf footballs you will be doing 50% weekly water changes. This can become quite $$$, because you will be wanting them at high-end brackish conditions. For example: to keep my 55g tank at 1.015, it took me 10 cups of salt weekly! At 1.018 (considered SW) you can use a ton more biological filtration with the live rock) eventually even your sand becomes "live"), meaning 1/3 WC monthly.

That’s awesome! I’m thank you very much for the info! That article is also very helpful! I’m think at around 3and a half inches I will convert to salt water and get a protein skimmer and live rock. I did have a slight feeling that they were trying to camouflage but after searching the whole internet I couldn’t find anything about them doing that. I will definitely be replacing the black sand with white sand within a few days. Again thanks for spreading the knowledge and I will be back with more questions!