The Puffer Forum

i just found out about these freshwater puffers. i had seen the salt water ones at the fish store and had always been fascinated with them. then the store got some green spotted puffers in. i know that i might be able to search for some specific stuff i need to know but i was just wandering a few main things-

~first i wanted to know if it would be harmful to keep him in a five gallon tank for a little while. the reason being that he is only one inch and i don't want him to get eaten by my other fish

~he was kind of an impulse buy and i did not think it would be problem to put him with my Oscar once he got bigger but oscar fish form that I'm a member of says that they would not recommend it.

~and my last question was that why would the people on the Oscar fish forum tell me that i need to put a fresh water puffer in brackish water when young then move it to salt when older.

as you can see i don't have experience with this fish i could use some advice thanks.

1 75 gal with wet dry filter not cycled fully
1 55gal with Oscar and barracuda
1 5 gal with the cool little GSP

There are real freshwater puffers that never need saltwater. The GSP, however, is not one. He will need brackish as a juvenile and full saltwater as an adult.

I would not recommend putting him in a 5 gallon for any length of time. They can become stunted quite quickly and require 30 gallons. I would recommend you return him to the store until you can provide an appropriate home for him.

I definitely wouldn't put him with your oscar. Either he will take bites out of your oscar or your oscar will eat him and get poisoned by his toxin. Either way its a bad scenario.

You have an oscar AND a barracuda in a 55??

This should answer all of your Qs & more: http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/ ... togsp.html

<fixed the link OL>

I thought that article used to be on http://www.pufferlist.com

speaking of.... I can't find the sticky that used to lead there


???

dbdarr wrote:~and my last question was that why would the people on the Oscar fish forum tell me that i need to put a fresh water puffer in brackish water when young then move it to salt when older.

The reason for that is this specific species of puffer lives in the ocean as an adult. The adults will travel to a brackish estuary or possibly even all the way up river to freshwater to spawn. Eventually, as they grow, the young will find their way back to the ocean. That's why we recommend the juveniles be kept in brackish and slowly acclimated to full marine conditions as they mature- to simulate their migration in the wild. When kept like this, they live for 10+ years!

Green Spotted Puffs aren't true freshwater puffers, so if that's what you're really interested in (and if you don't like the prospect of setting up a 30 Saltwater tank in a little while) then go to the link Monsterpuffer gave you. Otherwise the article Pufferpunk pointed you to will tell you everything you need to keep your puff happy & long lived! Let us know if you have any more questions!

Damn must have missed that puffer post when trawling through Oscarfish. I'll have to keep a closer eye out next time.