aclimation and water chemisty question

[SilviaGTO]

OK ive got two seperate questions here.

1) Ive got a brackish water tank, 8.2 pH, 1.010 sg, kH is in good range..
now my question is, i tested my tap water and the spring water I had been using.
My tap water has a 7.2 pH, but its hard, which is good for what I need (puffers)

The spring water had a 8.0 pH which is closer to what I need pH wise, but it has a kH of 4

Which water should I go with, the tap water is hard, but its got a lower pH and I would have to treat it, where as the spring water has a good pH and I wouldnt need to treat it, but its not very hard...

2) The store I will be buying my puffers from are being kept in freshwater at the moment. Spotted green puffers can be kept in fresh water while young, but do better in brackish water..
How do I go about aclimating them to the brackish water slowly without stressing them out?

 

[loganj]

I'd go with the tap water if you aren't going to use RO/DI water. Water with a high pH and low alkalinity will shift pH very easily because it doesn't have enough buffering capacity. My guess is that once you add the salt to the tap water, the pH will be in the range that you want. If not, you can always buffer it a little more.
I keep my GSP in full salt (about 1.023) and he is doing great. You might want to check out www.pufferlovers.com for more puffer info. I started mine out in FW and brought the SG up a couple of points with each water change. Remember that in nature, these fish will swim from FW to brackish to SW and back. They are very resilient to salinity changes. Everything I have read and all the advice I have been given points to better survival rates in higher salinity. They are very prone to ick in FW. Mine is by himself in a 29g with a Fluval 203 and a Seaclone skimmer...he appears to be quite happy with this arrangement.

 

[SilviaGTO]

my water is brackish at the moment.. and they are in freshwater at the fish store.. how should i acclimate them when i get them?
you say they are very resilient.. but another place says to slowly acclimate from fresh to brackish over a long period of time.. should I have a mini freshwater set up for them?

 

[loganj]

You might start them out in a rubbermaid tub and bring the salinity up over several days by changing water. You might, and a guy on pufferlovers.com did this, drip acclimate them to the brackish water. They are pretty tough fish...just make sure the pH is the same in the FW they start in and the brackish they are going to end up in.

 

[SilviaGTO]

sorry, bit of a newb here.

What is the drip acclimation method, and what is RO/DI water?

thankyou for your advice its helping a lot.

I just ordered some tahitian black moon sand for the tank, im waiting for that to arrive, and then im going to get plants and let the tank run a while..

After watching the first two puffers die due to bad information from the lfs.. i dont want to go through that again

 

[loganj]

RO/DI is water that has been run through a reverse osmosis unit with a deionization chamber. It is about as close to pure water as you can get (no mineral content) except for maybe distilled water.
When you drip acclimate, you use a piece of airline tubing with a valve (or you can tie a knot in it) so that the water from the tank flows into the container with the fish at a very slow drip. This brings the water parameters in the container up to the specs in the tank very slowly. Did you ever check out www.pufferlovers.com ?

 

[SilviaGTO]

Yes I did. Very useful information.

I also like the movies with the puffers on www.puffers.org.

I hope Puffy develops a cult following. lol.