The Puffer Forum

Hey everyone, pretty new to the puffer keeping. I have a 1 in. GSP (Puffy ) . He's in a 29 gallon tank with a violet goby,2 albino dojo's and a pictus catfish.
I am very confused with cycling the water into a brackish state..My LPS told my to use Instant ocean ,and to put 1 tablespoon to every 5 gallons and to do this slowly.My big problem is I have added 2 water changes ,about 25% each and done as they have said and have check my tank with a hydrometer and it has not changed!!!!!!! Am I doing something wrong/ I am so confused?
Also mind you this is the first time I have done a brackish tank I have been doing fresh water for over 15 years. Please help me !!!!!!!!!

hello, welcome to TPF!!!

well, 1 tbs per 5g of water isnt high enough to get a reading on a hydrometer, you wil need to increase it before you see a reading.

it is good that you are using instant ocean. marine salt is the proper salt for a brackish tank.

at the GSPs current size, a fairly low salinity should be fine, although you will need to slowly increase it to full-on saltwater as he grows up. ( i would go between 1.003/1.005, although increase this very slowly, read about it in our library)

are you using an intsant ocean hydrometer? they are good because they read as low as 1.000 (freshwater).

as the GSP grows, you will need to move his tank mates to a different tank, becasue to prevent stunting, the puffer will need 29g of tankwater, for just him, no tankmates. his tankmates will probably not apreciate the brackish water either.

there is an excelent article on the GSP in our library. please read it, and any of the other articles that you can read. they should be very helpful to you.

Thanks John that was very helpful !

As for my GSP I was going to keep him in the tank with his mates till August when i get my 55 gallon .
As for your question yes I did get the Instant Ocean hydrometer.

My other question ...Will my other fish be ok with the brackish water till then ?
Once again thank you for the advice and I will be reading the articles.

Daphne

I would keep your salinity low for now. 1tbs/5g is fine for now. Wait until you have him in his own tank before trying to raise it any further. The other fish will be much happier, and the GSP will be able to manage with a low salinity for a while.

Please do check out the library section of the website. You'll learn a lot, and we'll be here to answer your questions.

I believe the dojos and the pictus will not tolerate the salt. Both are FW fish and the loaches are a scaless fish so the salt will irritate them. I am not sure if pictus are scaless.

1tbs/5gallons is low enough that none of the fish are likely to notice. I don't recommend going beyond that until you can get the GSP alone in his own tank.

I would make getting the fish sorted out to other tanks the first and highest priority. Then I'd get the specific gravity up a bit - 1 tbsp per 5 gallons is a gesture and not much more. It is not BW as far as the GSP or the dragon goby are concerned.

this is a funny topic for meet and greet

Not really... most meet and greet posts are: "Hi, I have a problem" :p

the dragon goby will do fine in BW. They actually do better in BW less ulcers on the skin ect, if you go slow enough he will also turn Marine. Ours are in full marine condition and I see more activity out of Puff since we converted over. His colors, ect are better too.
Georgia

Thanks everyone for your answers , As for the fish they are doing fine , I told my class that before the school year ends, were going to have another tank,and one just for the GSP and the goby,their all excited .....Once again thank you !

If these fish are in the classroom, consider using a refractometer - that would have salinity units in ppt as well as SG. Any students interested in biology of brackish or marine waters will be using ppt units for salinity, not sg, a unit used by aquarists because it was used in the old days of floating hydrometers. Its never too soon to use the correct measurement units in teaching, IMO.