The Puffer Forum

I am new to puffers and probably like many, bought a new fish for our community fish tank. Well it was a figure 8 puffer because the sales person said it would be fine with our other fish. I have a fresh water tank with tiger barbs, a molly and a chinese fighting fish along with a pecostimus. After checking out what I bought, and of course after already falling in love with the puffer, I brought up the old 15 gal tank and set it up for our new friend. It is sitting getting ready, but in the meantime, I could use some advice where to start to make it slightly brackish. Can I use ocean salt? I know I will need to get a water testing kit, but until then should I just wait before attempting the salt?
Next....We went to the nearest lake and dug up some snails to start a little farm to feed the puffer. Ok...Here is the first question. My puffer is about 1 and 1/2 inches long. How big can the snail be for him to attempt to eat it? Next, I put a snail in there but he cant seem to find it, It was a pretty good sized one, probably about 1/2 his size. He is eating well when we give him shrimp brine. Another thing, I have small pebbles in the bottom of the tank, should I layer about half of the tank with sand? Can I use washed sand? I know most of this is covered somewhere, but the more I read, the more I get confused because I get conflicting information. Can you tell I am really excited about the puffer? I just dont want to lose him before I can get things right for him.

Ok...phewww!
Calm......breathe!
He'll be ok in freshwater initially....so get him in that new tank, use some filter media from your established one, get a test kit, like, yesterday, monitor it till you're confident it's cycled, doing as many water changes as you need. When you're happy, start thinking about salt - marine salt...not aquarium NaCl salt.
Substrate....aragonite, as this dissolves and keeps the pH and hardness of the water up.
A snail half his size is probably a bit too big, and there's lots of foods from your silly lfs that'll do him just fine....have a look at the thread called "What do you feed your F8s?"
Remember..any food that you get from your fishmonger must be frozen for 48 hours, then defrosted before you dish it up. The freezing kills any pathogens.
It's good he's scoffing brine shrimp already..means he's settling in, but brine shrimp aren't very nutricious - 90-odd% water, so use them as the occasional treat. He probably didn't register the snail as food.
A F8 with a fighting fish sounds like something out of Gladiator...so he needs to go in that 15 gallon asap.
I think that covers it for now...ask as many Qs as you need.
F8s are infectious...friends of mine who aren't even interested in fiah always ask about my two.
Pami.

Thank you!
Heres my next bunch.! What did you mean by fishmonger? Should I have NOT put in the snail from the lake without freezing it first? OUCH!
Next, Can you tell me exactly what I want to be looking for in the water test and what I need the various things to read? There is so very much info on here that I am completely lost. I must confess that with my fresh water tank I have had to do very little besides being very consciencious about keeping it cleaned and doing regular water changes with a few drops of Chlor OUT. Maybe the gods have just been very kind to me because my fish have all been very healthy and thrived for the last 4 years. This tank is obviously going to be more of a challenge, so I do want to do it right.
Next.......Sand bottom.....Is there a special type of sand I should be using? Can half of the tank be sand and half pebbles? I worry if I make it all sand, how do I vacumn the tank clean without vacumning all the sand up. Can I have pebbles under the sand?

You can get a pretty cheap Master Test Kit here: http://www.bigalsonline.com, along with a lot of other fishy goodies.

To clean aragonite sand, just stir it up & skim over the top to remove waste.

Fishmonger=produce dept of your local grocery store.

I cant believe how much I have already learned from this forum. My FW tank has never had the water tested! Luckily, those poor fish has survived under adverse conditions. In part probably because fairly good tap water and I WAS diligent enough to do regular water changes. I still have a lot to learn but am confidant with a little help from here I will be able to keep my little puffer alive.
One thing I am not sure of yet is the feeding process. Here in this town, I dont have alot yet available to feed him. Or at least haven't found the source, which I am looking for. I started a snail farm and that should help, but I know he needs more. They have ghost shrimp (At least they have them listed, presently not in stock) and I have shrimp brine. As far as the ghost shrimp go, Do you normally buy a dozen or so and put them all in the tank with him? Or do you freeze them? Or just buy one or two every day? How about the snails? One a day? I am confused about how you manage to keep your live food for the puffer. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

As for snails, I brought home some of the pest snails that always plague the lfs. I'm always leery about taking things from the wild around town because I'm always paranoid about pollutants. My little 1.25 in. GSP is getting frozen Formula One and Mysis shrimp from the lfs, baby snails, a few bloodworms, and live ghost shrimp. Some lfs's sell frozen krill and that's what's fed to the ones at the store I got mine at. I'm gonna get some soon.
When you're cycling in a new tank you should see ammonia go up, then as it goes down you'll see nitrites go up, then as they come down you should see nitrates show up. You're end result should be 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and nitrates that barely register at the bottom of the scale, then you're ready. You should be able to go to Petco.com and get a Care Sheet that explains the Nitrogen Cycle I think.
Oh, and a little bag of Oceanic Natural Sea Salt should run around $5.

http://www.petco.com/caresheets/fish/NitrogenCycle.pdf

How many ghost shrimp do you buy? And do you just put them all in the tank with your puffer to live until he decides to eat them? Or do you have another tank set up to keep these until lunch time?

Well, some people here may disagree that this is a good idea, but yes I just toss them in. Puffers (at least this one) are somewhat curious and interactive. I figure live ghost shrimp give him something to entertain himself with and fulfill that hunting instinct. The lfs's around here usually sell ghost shrimp for 10 or 12 for $1.99, so that's what I get. Actually they were part of the cycling of my tank before I got the gsp.

I'd get some veg for the ghost shrimp and let the condemned invertebrates have a last meal before the crunch!
That way, your puff will be getting more fibre and nutrients, which is all good.
Glad to know things are looking up. Keep us informed.
Pami.

OK.....well I think I am ready to aclimatize my puffer to brackish water. Can someone describe to me in detail how to do the drip? I have my water doing it's few days resting with the ocean salt but not sure how you all set up a slow drip.
Thanks!

Well, the easiest way to do it is to add a little bit of the brackish water to the tank, but you don't want to raise it too fast.

Did you buy a hydrometer? They measure the salt content. You don't want to raise the salinity of the tank more than .002 each week (faster than that will be fine for the fish but kill the bacteria, which will make the tank recycle). I'd just add a little bit of the brackish water every time you do a water change, until you have it up around 1.008 or so. It doesn't have to be a major production. If say you add two gallons of 1.008 water to a 15 gallon tank, well, I'm not positive on the math but I'd guess that would balance out to right about... 1.001? I could be off on the math but you see what I mean? Then the next week you could add 2 more gallons, or even three when you do a water change and it will bring it up a little bit more...

If you do want to do it as a slow drip acclimation, you put the bucket of brackish water up above the tank. You tie a loose knot in a piece of airline, then start a siphon from the bucket of brackish going down to the tank. Tighten or loosen the knot in the airline to speed up or reduce the flow, and make sure you don't put too much water in the top bucket and have the tank overflow.

Personally, I'd just go the route of adding a little brackish water every time I did a water change, until it reached the appropriate level. Again, don't do more than .002 each week.

I took five weeks to raise my SG to 1.004..the first few changes (I was doing 2Xweek at this time) didn't even register on the hydrometer when I tested the tank water.
Every time I did a change I added some salt, waited for it to show on the hydrometer (tank water, not change water), and took it from there, adding bigger amounts of salt (still not very large) each change, and testing the SG the next day.
Take as long as you want...your bacteria will love it.
Drip acclimatisation is for when you're introducing a fish into an established cycled tank that has significantly higher SG than the fish is used to.
Pami.

Yes I did get a hydrometer..... and so far we have the water to 1.002. We are doing regular water tests on the tank and the amonnia level is at .5, So we just did another water change. About 30% right? How long before we should test it again to see if it has come down?
Another question....We have been giving the puffer snails about the size of his eye.....he sucks out the snail but leaves the shell. No attempt at all to eat it. How do I get him to start eating them? Or is he too young yet? He is only about a inch and a half

My puff sucks the snail out too. The trick is to leave the shells in and skipp a feeding day, my GSPs will chomp all the shells looking for food.

Or you could crush the snail before you drop it in.

Kim