The Puffer Forum

Just curious weekly 50% water changes can get quit exspensive for my spotted puffers it's 30 bucks (canadain) for a box of marine salt (7.5lb) box.

Does it have to be weekly? any suggestions or tips?
Thanks

momodig wrote:Just curious weekly 50% water changes can get quit exspensive for my spotted puffers it's 30 bucks (canadain) for a box of marine salt (7.5lb) box.

Does it have to be weekly? any suggestions or tips?
Thanks

You may not need to do weekly water changes that large. Personally I just watch the nitrates. Some weeks I may do larger water changes than others, but my goal is usually to keep the nitrates under 10ppm.

My F8s are still quite young, and in a tank larger than they need so I'm sure that makes a difference, but I am typically only doing 15 - 30% weekly water changes.

Since you have GSPs, I think your goal should be getting them to full marine, and using a protein skimmer and live rock. This should help a lot with the nitrates.

Wow! Where in Canada are you? I get my salt here in Vancouver $20 for a 15 lb bag...which is roughly 50 gallons...What kind of salt is it?

I buy salt by the bucket from http://www.drsfostersmith.com for $32 & that's for Reef Crystals--Instant Ocean is even cheaper.

What is a live rock? Protein skimmer? I have one of those intake filters that can pull water from both the top and bottem will that work? But I found that I put my out take near the top and i'm not getting any build up. The brand I use is "Instant ocean sea salt" What's the best way to test nitrates, I have the quick strips but someone told me those weren't any good.

I'm in Toronto and I can get the big 50lb pails of instant ocean for about $60. I just picked up 3/4 of a pail from a aquarium trading site for $20.

Let me know if you are in southern ontario.

And yes, test strips are for crap. Its worth the small investment to get a good liquid test kit.

For a marine tank education:
http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_mar ... _index.asp

I don't live in toronto, a small town, that's probably why my salt costs so much -- how long will puffers live in brackish water only? Please remember I'm not going for a fancy marine tank, I just want to keep my spotted puffers cause they look so cool and do wierd little things lol

Green spotted puffers need moderately high salinity, but in my opinion pH and hardness are more important. Around 50% seawater (~SG 1.010) should be fine, and that is certainly how they are kept in public aquaria (e.g. London Aquarium) and Klaus Ebert, author of the Aqualog pufferfish book, recommends 25-30% seawater for brackish water pufferfish. Schaefer, in the Aqualog brackish book recommends 50% seawater, and in my brackish water book for TFH, we recommend 50-100% seawater depending on what the tankmates, if any, require.

Keeping them in seawater is more advantageous because of the living rock / protein skimmer options than because of the extra salt in the water. Living rock helps with water quality, and protein skimmers remove stuff from the water before it can become a water quality issue, and these are both big wins. It's a toss-up whether maintaining the tank at a lower salinity, but performing more water changes, would actually be a better choice. Others may have strong opinions on this.

Fluctuating the salinity up or down a bit with each water change is probably useful too (there are estuarine fishes, after all) and keeping them at one settled salinity is certainly not something they'd experience in the wild. In the wild it is unambiguous that these fish swim between freshwater and brackish water (mangroves and estuaries) and not between brackish water and the sea. Keeping them in seawater may be viable, even preferable, in aquaria, but doesn't seem to be how they live in their natural habitat. Whilst keeping them in freshwater is certainly not recommended, I haven't seen anything that convinces me that a marine-salinity aquarium is essential, even if it may be useful.

Besides the salinity, you definitely want a pH at 8.0 and hardness in the "high" bracket of however your test kit is calibrated. Adding some Calcium Plus or equivalent to the filter to help buffer the water is a good idea if you are planning on using less salt per litre of water. There was some indication from experiments that brackish water fish are more sensitive to low salinity when the pH drops for, presumably, physiological reasons. While fish don't "feel" pH, pH can affect certain cellular processes such as the movement of salts and water, and one would have to assume that something like that is the issue here. Hardness is about water chemistry stability, of course.

Cheers,

Neale

As far as salt cost, its most economical to buy in large buckets - advertised as making 150 to 160 gallons per bucket. Since you are making brackish, say if 50% SW, that's 300 to 320 gallons. On-line prices are usually 30-$35 per bucket, so if you shop (and stock up) during free shipping specials, you are paying about 10 cents per gallon (at 50% full-stength SW).

Some salt buckets even come with free t-shirts, and you can use the empty buckets for water changes, draining tanks, etc.