The Puffer Forum

I am confused.......Firstly, let me say, I have faith in you guys on here....some of you are VERY experienced but something's been bothering me... when I bought my Ceylon, both guys at the LFS said they had kept puffers for years (Ceylons & Mbu) and said that because my fish was bread in captivity it would not need to go into brakish/Marine water and would live happily for many, many years in freshwater....Now I am dithering as what to do.....your views would be greatly appreciated

Firstly my doubt has arisen at the point where they say the puffer has been captive bred.The majority of all puffers are wild caught.
True the puffer will live for years in FW but will probably live a healthy, happier and longer life in BW.
I personally would go against the advice you are getting from the LFS and trust the advice you will find here.
At the end of the day it is your choice. You chose a BW fish and I recommend you keep it in BW. If that is not what you want they probably best to return the fish and look for a completly FW puffer. There are loads on the UK market.

One more thing is do the people at the LFS personally keep them or keep them alive in the shop as the two are very different. A Ceylon's life expectancy is 10+ years and in that time they would move up and downstream in the wild through different levels of salinity which would be impossible to do in a tank to the same degree.

By raising the salinity to a high end brackish to marine environment as they reach full size is mimicing their natural habitat as best is possible in a tank where they would spend most of their time hunting.

Do what the experts say- not what the lfs suggest- they're collecting a paycheck.

Brackish isn't so bad- it's just a lil bit of salt in the water- nuthin different.

oi i work in a LFS lol no but seriously about 90% of lfs are in it for the pay cheque but luckily the one im in is managed by a discus fanatic so all the stuff we say and sell is right and we come across so many people with the same thing happen more commonly f8s but still the salt isnt hard to judge my reccomendation is buy either a hydrometer (around £15) or a refractometer thats more accurate for about £30 on ebay salt isnt really much more work.

I have bought a refractometer from e bay...i am awaiting delivery and I DO intend to go brakish for my puffers sake, but was just confused as to why the lfs were so insistant that he would be absolutely fine in FW. These guys said they kept Puffers themselves at home

If you are selling a specialist fish such a s a puffer, some LFS find them hard to move on. They will try anything for a sale. So if someone is interested in a fig8 or GSP they will not put the customer off by 'blinding' them with the technicalities of a BW set up.They will tell you something that you want to hear. That is that they are easy to care for and do not require any special neeeds.

I constantly argue with my LFS about what kind of tanks the puffers should be in and how we should be more informative to the customers. Oh...did I mention I'm also an employee. Its good to know that they neither listen to customers or their own kind. Just the green flowing in.