gavin423

Ok, I purchased and set up a 29 gallon tank. Originally, the purpose was for a couple small schools of fish (tetras, danios, etc) and a centerpiece. However, I've changed my mind. Right now I only have a small school (9) zebra danios in it and it is freshwater.

What I would like to do, however, is take the danios and rehome them. Then change the tank to a puffer tank. I would like to put either one GSP or 2 F8 puffies in it. But I have a few questions, so hopefully, someone can explain this to me.

a. Would 1 GSP OR 2 F8's be good numbers or is my tank too small for those numbers?

b. I have a small "herd" of MTS buried throughout the tank as it is a sand bottom. Please tell me I don't have to dig each and every MTS out in order to get a puffer in there. They are literally EVERYWHERE in there and I think having to get them all out may be enough to discourage me from switching the tank.

c. My BIG question: How do I go about switching my freshwater to saltwater (or brackish) as the case may be? Would kind of extra tools and such would I need? This is my big problem area - saltwater is a foreign language to me and I find it confusing, so if someone could walk me through it step by step, i'd be most appreciative. If I went with GSP how do I gradually up the salinity over time? could I just put it as full salt from the get go?

Ok, well, that's all for now (sorry it's soo much) and thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Tiffany

agabr123

a. that stocking would be great

b. nope, you don't need to switch it out, that should be fine. i think that their shells may be too hard for some puffers to eat, but if you want to feed them to your puffs then you can crush a couple with your hand.

c. freshwater to brackish is really easy, you just buy marine salt and a hydrometer or refractometer, add the marine salt to a bucket with water in it, use the hydrometer or refractometer to measure salinity to get it where you need it, let the salt water sit for a day, and then add it to the tank. you don't need any special equipment or anything, but just remember that salt won't evaporate from your tank, and make sure you test the salinity to keep things in check. as for saltwater, that is foreign territory to me so i'll let someone else answer that

pinkfloydpuffer

It's also a good idea to use some pH-buffering substrate. If you don't want to swap out all the present substrate for aragonite, then just get a bag of it and put it in your filter as media.

You could definitely start a GSP in full SW. It's recommended to adjust them from FW to SW salinity over a period of a week.
To slowly adjust, when doing waterchanges, add water at the SG you will want, and slowly the SG will raise. This will allow the bacteria time to catch up. It's not necessary to bring a GSP to SW, but it's easier and will in the long run save you money on salt. Myself, I am at 1.014SG for my puffs right now, and within the next year or so I'll start bringing their SG up, and when it gets high enough I'll start adding LR a little at a time. I'll also get a protein skimmer during that time, and fill my AquaClear with LR rubble instead of filter media.