Green Spotted Puffer

[Lacrette1991]

Hello all,

I recently acquired this GSP and absolutely love him. I had one years ago but couldn’t commit to the saltwater care.
After getting into saltwater for the past year I was confident enough as well as had some salt kicking around to start a brackish aquarium.
The salinity has been brought up to 1.004 using RODI water over the past week and he’s eating a steady diet of freeze dried shrimps and mixed seafood, as well as blood worms.
My main question even after all my research is what experience have any of you had with keeping these guys in a full reef community and what salinity would you say worked/works best for your GSP in a full marine aquarium?

 

[Montiman]

I have kept these at full 1.025 salinity, but I have never tried one in a reef. Even if they are coral safe they definitely will eat inverts so I never tried it. Green Spots can be a bit of a fin nipper so I would make sure any fish could hold their own against some aggression. The Green Spots I kept in fish only set ups were generally well behaved except with very delicate fish like, Batfish and some butterflies.

 

[vetteguy53081]

there are few fully transitioned and able to live in a marine tank. Obviously, they are not reef safe around coral. There is also figure 8 and valentini puffer which have adapted well

 

[josephxsxn]

I had one with GSP and a toadstool leather for a while..I accidentally nuked the tank one day so don't have the puffer anymore.

 

[Mark Gray]

I had one in full salinity 1.025. I had to put him in the sump he was dead set on killing everything

 

[Clownfish_Boy]

I once had one of those puffers in a 45g FOWLR at full salinity; it wouldn't eat anything but live guppies.... But then it went carpet-surfing one time too many and was found one evening dead on the floor..... I so hated to lose that cute little fish !

 

[Hermie]

I have one in my reef tank for 2 years now. Very rarely bothers any corals but the puffer makes it very hard to have snails in the tank. And since I have few snails, I have a lot of algae (lack of herbivores). Hermit crabs are generally safe against the puffer because it has a relatively small mouth and hermit crabs are evolved to hide from predator fish.

Would I recommend it? If you really like the puffer then yes, it can be kept in full marine salinity and with corals (all types) provided you feed it well. But if the puffer isn't the "center" of your build, and if there are not other herbivores (such as a tang in a larger tank), then I predict a lot of algae in your future.

check out my build thread and you can see photos of the puffer and all the corals I've kept

 

[gr2]

Hello all,

I recently acquired this GSP and absolutely love him. I had one years ago but couldn’t commit to the saltwater care.
After getting into saltwater for the past year I was confident enough as well as had some salt kicking around to start a brackish aquarium.
The salinity has been brought up to 1.004 using RODI water over the past week and he’s eating a steady diet of freeze dried shrimps and mixed seafood, as well as blood worms.
My main question even after all my research is what experience have any of you had with keeping these guys in a full reef community and what salinity would you say worked/works best for your GSP in a full marine aquarium?

Hi again, I also wanted to ask you how long did your brackish tank to finish cycling?
thanks

 

[Hermie]

Hi again, I also wanted to ask you how long did your brackish tank to finish cycling?
thanks

Just want to add that when salinity level changes significantly it can cause a "new cycle," so while brackish can be anywhere from 1.002 sg to 1.018 (roughly); once a tank is cycled at a specific salinity in that range, it's advised to only raise or lower the salinity by 0.001-0.002 sg per week to keep the cycle from restarting. That's just an estimate based on what I recall from experienced brackish aquarists (neal from wetwebmedia).

 

[Lacrette1991]

Hi again, I also wanted to ask you how long did your brackish tank to finish cycling?
thanks

I had it cycling with RODI water for 4 weeks

 

[Lacrette1991]

Just want to add that when salinity level changes significantly it can cause a "new cycle," so while brackish can be anywhere from 1.002 sg to 1.018 (roughly); once a tank is cycled at a specific salinity in that range, it's advised to only raise or lower the salinity by 0.001-0.002 sg per week to keep the cycle from restarting. That's just an estimate based on what I recall from experienced brackish aquarists (neal from wetwebmedia).

I agree 100%. I just wanted to add I made another post about acclimating this puffer over 12 hours from 1.010 to 1.023 and he’s been doing great. With experience I believe this process of acclimating can be done effectively and efficiently with the upmost caution.

 

[Hermie]

Anyone know where to get freshwater snails for food? pond snails... most of the marine snails shells are too hard. I had a population of freshwater snails that crashed I think it was a genetic problem because I only started with 2 or 3. Pond snails without a doubt are the puffers favorite food. It also likes to hunt for amphipods, so if you are going to put copepods in there, definitely go with amphipods as well (the bigger ones).

 

[CMMorgan]

Wow - thank you for the memories. I had a huge brackish tank once upon a time with two GSP's. They were enormous when I moved to Florida. Alas, they did not survive the move because I was too uneducated to have bubblers. Broke my heart .... I can honestly say that was the first time that I truly loved a fish.

 

[gr2]

Wow - thank you for the memories. I had a huge brackish tank once upon a time with two GSP's. They were enormous when I moved to Florida. Alas, they did not survive the move because I was too uneducated to have bubblers. Broke my heart .... I can honestly say that was the first time that I truly loved a fish.

I’m sorry you lost your two little guys. If you don’t mind me asking what do you mean by you were too uneducated to have bubblers? I just don’t want to make the same mistake.
thanks

 

[CMMorgan]

I was moving from Ga to Florida. It was about a ten hour drive. The LFS had agreed to adopt my fish ... Zeus and Poseidon. The deal was that I would drive by on the way out of town and give them the fish. I arrived... literally driving a moving truck, with two kids, two dogs, one toad and these two fish, as a single mom. Guess who closed for the day to go to a sporting event?
So... not knowing whet else to do, we drove to Florida... opening the containers to try to oxygenate the water as best we could. It wasn't enough.... neither made the trip. If I had been thinking, I'd have used bait bubblers.
One day, I'll get a hardy lower salinity macro tank going and get another GSP. They had the most amazing personalities!! They were like two slimy puppies. Never had a sick day, lived on frozen bloodworms... they were awesome. I would not be a reefer now if I had not had such a positive experience with my GSP's.

 

[Dash]

My entry into saltwater was entirely built around my two GSP. I set up my first tank 5 years ago and acclimated them over the course of 24 hours, under the guidance of folks from the Puffer Forum (my build thread is there). I caught the bug hard and now I have a mixed reef tank with these guys as the centrepiece. They have shown zero interest in corals & are not aggressive. I have the usual CUC, snails, urchins, etc. The only thing I wouldn’t put in there are crabs/shrimp (soft shell). I always hear people worry about sourcing snails to feed them. Too much work. My guys feast on a mixed seafood mash of clams,mussels, shrimp, etc.
They really are special fish. So smart.

 

[Hermie]

@Dash that's awesome

For the newer reefers, my advice is to get cowries (a type of snail), they are virtually impossible for a puffer to eat or harass and they are largely nocturnal, so puffers won't really be active while the cowries are munching on algae. They are relatively expensive though.

 

[Dash]

The snails I have are turbos, trochus, ringed cowries, conch & nassarius. They did catch one nassarius but that was when it was newly added & didn’t dig down fast enough. The others are well protected by their shells. I’ve had the same 4 hermit crabs for the past 3-4 years. Also, a tiny fine-striped pistol shrimp but he has a goby and burrow (although he’s always straying outside). My best guess for their non-aggression is that they are extremely well-fed (and yes they are GREEDY).
Their teeth are kept in check by constant picking at the rocks - which used to have an infestation of vermetid worms
Btw there’s a Valentini in there with them. He’s fine too.

 

[Hermie]

Mine takes chunks out of Turbos and Trochus, I could take a picture and show you a trochus I have now that's missing a GSP-size chunk of flesh and operculum. I think it just depends on the individuals. Even though I feed mine heavy it still likes to harass snails if it can. On the other hand, it ignores ghost shrimp and peppermint shrimp. I've had ghost shrimp in the tank for almost a year now and they are still alive.