The Puffer Forum

I have a GSP for 3 days now and I hope to raise the sallinity to almost or complete seawater-level over the next weeks. Beceause he was a dying puffer in a coldwater fresh tank in a garden centre (he is an emergency buy) I put him in a 30 gallon non cycled tank and raise the sallinity with him in it keeping a close eye on nitrite every day.

Till now I bought crushed coral as substrate and put Zeolite and crushed coral in the filter, there is nothing else in the tank with him. There are also an aerator and a small Eheim in the tank for more current. The puffer is doing very well, eating and swimming happely after raising the sallinity a bit. The first day he was allmost completely black and laying still on the gravel.

But what can I put in the tank? When fully marine I would love to have an anemon in it. I will buy a scimmer then and do weekly waterchanges. Live rock is also on the list.

The puffer is allmost 4 inches so is completely salt an option? And do anemons stand a chance against a puffer?

I would also like to add some Caulerpa if that's possible

I work in a LFS so getting the stuff is very easy and cheap for me. The complete setup till now was only about 20 dollars including the 30 gallon tank

It will take way longer than a few weeks to raise the salinity in your tank. Only raise it about .002 a week at the most. The uncycled tank is a big problem with puffers! You work at a LFS so try to get at least some old filter media to add to the filter to get the cycle sped up. Make sure you test that water constantly! And an anemone would probably have no chance with a puffer in the tank! Also, lighting would need to be very strong...Probably Metal Halides. LR and a skimmer would be great once the tank reaches full marine! Good luck!

JustinPSmith wrote:It will take way longer than a few weeks to raise the salinity in your tank. Only raise it about .002 a week at the most. The uncycled tank is a big problem with puffers! You work at a LFS so try to get at least some old filter media to add to the filter to get the cycle sped up. Make sure you test that water constantly! And an anemone would probably have no chance with a puffer in the tank! Also, lighting would need to be very strong...Probably Metal Halides. LR and a skimmer would be great once the tank reaches full marine! Good luck!

Thank you for youre advice.
But is it not the cycling that prevents you from raising sallinity faster? The puffer itself seems to love the raising in sallinity looking at his bright colour and swimming around. In freshwater he was black and had fungus. Now the fungus is clearing and the puffer seems very happy eating his foods. Now my tank is not cycled I thought I could raise sallinity in a few weeks in order to get it cycled completely or allmost marine.
I do have a instant nitrite removing product and I do watertests every day to monitor the nitrite.

There is a running Eheim from my freshwatertank on this tank and I did put water from my allready cycled tank in the puffertank. So some nitrite removal has to be there. In 3 days nitrite is still 0 at the moment

To my opinion nitrite is avoided best by adding old filter material (preferably from a brackish water or seawater tank) after each waterchange/salinity increase into the filter of the uncycled tank. I had no nitrite cycling any new tank that way.

The fungus went away in two days just by increasing salinity? Nice.

General experience in this forum says it is safest to restrict salinity increase to 0.002 a week. I didn't know about that and did it much faster (0.001 a day, daily waterchange) for years without problems (no black bellied puffers or mad morays). But as stated above I added old filter material from brackish tanks daily. It may be better to stay on the safe side meaning maximum 0.002 a week.

Living rocks are nice, but the puffer will eat away almost any inverts living on the surface. I recognized a massive increase of nitrate for the first three days after putting living rocks in a tank, but then the levels dropped again, when the rocks were adapted to the new tank. Caulerpa is a good idea, works at 1.018 at 25°C. Some red tangs work at lower salinity, but almost never sold.

IMO, nitrite removing products (as well as ammonia removing products) are tempting disaster. The ammonia and nitrites are vital for the cycle and if they are removed, they aren't available and your tank will be unstable for a long time. Are you testing ammonia as well or just the nitrites?

Water from a cycled tank does nothing. There is very little, if any, free-floating beneficial bacteria in the water column. Its on surfaces, not in the water.

IMO, you should get some Biospira ASAP and add it to the tank. Depending on your current salinity, you may need to get the SW variety rather than the FW, but you need some immediately to prevent harming the GSP.

And to answer your initial question, yes, GSPs can go full marine.

Are you adding the culerpa to your main display tank? There are alot of guys in my reef club that highly recommend against this type of macroalgae.

This macro like to go sexual at totally random times and starts to release spores into the tank.

If your using it for nutrient export I would recommend Chaeto. However Culerpa does have a nice look to it, but I don't want to put the strain on my filter to potentially have to suck all those spores out.

Also... what state are you located in? Culerpa I know for sure is illegal in California b/c it is currently overtaking the coastlines b/c its such a hardy species.

Caulerpa is a major problem in the mediterranean killing the sea grass biotopes. Wouldn't put it in a highly sensitive reef tank, but i wouldn't put T. nigroviridis in a reef tank, either.

Bad thing is: when they let out the spores, almost the entire plants die and leave greenish-white slimy stuff. Propagation of Caulerpa can result in a nitrate increase of about 20-30 mg/l (nitrite did not occur), but this value cannot be generalized since it should depend on how many plants are in a certain amount of water. It's deadly for many reef inverts, but no big deal (citing Schaefer, 2005) for a healthy puffer if regular weekly waterchanges are done.

To prevent the sexual propagation by spores you have to cut Caulerpa regularly. You should do that anyway. If that is done it is a good additional method of nitrate removal and it looks nice.

If you want to add "green stuff" put it into a refugeum, not in your main tank. I had nitrates of 40, fairly consistantly, even with a DSB & 30% weekly water changes. Ever since I added a 20g fuge to my now upgraded 90g reef tank, nitrates are .25 & going lower.

And if Caulerpa is your choice for the refugium, use 24/7 lighting and it will not go sexual. Periodic routine plant mass removal is still required, but mineral export is part of the refugium's proper function anyway.

There is no problem here with the Caulerpa, I live in the Netherlands and the sea here is way to cold for it. I know about the problems with Caulerpa overgrowing all live in the sea so I would never use it in a tropical area.

Thanks for all the information again, I will use it to the puffers benefit

If your tank is not cycled and the GSP is 4", I personally would go full marine and add some old filter media from an established SW tank at your store (and anything else you can add - gravel etc) ASAP.

You can probably raise the salinity to full marine conditions over the course of a few hours - puffers are pretty resiliant to fluctuations in salinity, its the beneficial bacteria that isn't, and that's what takes weeks to adjust. But you don't need to worry about that because you don't have any yet.

If your tank is cycled, disregard me and slowly raise the salinity over a month or two

Can you get cured Live Rock and transport it home in buckets? If so, you can probably get a very quick cycle going with no harm to your puffer. A good skimmer, cured LR, and the right Salinity and you should have no problem. I have had a few tanks now that I have cycled in a week or less by using established LR and good skimming. I also had just a very small nitrite spike but no ammonia spike. And as long as you dont over stock, you would be fine. Just keep him by himself.

Hahaha I just noticed that I said LIVER ROCK....That doesnt sound like it would be good for a tank! Might cause a huge ammonia spike! Probably should just go with good old LIVE ROCK!

I fixed that for ya.