The Puffer Forum

If I buy a GSP in FW and would like to bring it to SW, how should I bring up the salinity? Would it do better if the salinity varied with the fishs age? would it be better just to bring the salinity up slowly over a period of time from the beginning?

What should I feed the little guy? I already buy a bunch of different foods for my reef tank, brine, mysis, marine cuisine, form 1 & 2 pellets, and seaweed. Would marine snails be too hard for the GSP beak? What could I feed him to keep him healthy and keep his beak in check?

We have no knowledge of the long-term effects of putting a juvie GSP into SW. They live in BW, till close to adulthood. Unless you can find a larger one... There is an article on feeding puffers in our Library.

ok cool, so when keeping them in brackish it is fine to just use a sea salt mix like Instant Ocean right?

Yes, you need a marine salt mix, not aquarium salt, for brackish.

my gsp was sold as a fw and he still is living in fw. Seems to be doin fine but the more i read the more i feel bad for him so i have to invest to change it all to bw. I have had him for 7 months in fw. so who knows hey......

fish lover, it won't take much doing to change your fish to BW....it won't need other equipment like a marine tank. Just start adding some marine salt to the water you use for water changes. There are other threads on here about the amount to use for the desired salinity etc.
It won't cost much because you'll be raising the salinity slowly.

Go buy a box of marine salt!!

cartoonbear and fishlover420, remember that when changing the specific gravity that you do not exceed changes of more than 0.002 per week. This is so that you don't kill your bio filter.

Also, when adding salt, it is a good idea to dissolve the marine salt in a bucket of water before adding it to your tank; some people suggest to dissolve the salt in a tub of water and add a powerhead for a few hours to make sure the salt is dissolved.

I would also suggest investing in a refractometer. Personally I have not had a good experience with my floating hydrometer.

as of now I use the powerhead technique on my reef and my hydrometers have never had a problem.

How could you just raise .02, it would just be hard to measure.

Really? My hydrometer doesn't have any trouble reading in increments of about .0005

wow...how low does it go? mine only goes to 1.012. What brand is it? looks like i need a new one.

Ours (the one spoot was talking about) goes from 1.000-1.060 with increments of 0.002.

But seriously, if you're going to buy a new one anyway, go all out and get a refractometer. You're probably going to end up getting one anyway. And it'll save you the trouble of constantly calibrating and re-calibrating the hydrometer.

Bear, this is where I got my refractometer and I highly recommend them:
http://stores.ebay.com/OPTICS-MART

SeaTest & Instant Ocean brands of hydrometers. start at 0.