My new GSP!

[ilovemydragongoby]

I finally found a green spotted puffer yesterday, the cutest thing. had to have him. i have read up lots of these little guys, how to care for them etc. (temp, ph, food etc) But I wanted to know, how often do i give them snails. I just wanted to clarify it because the guy i talked to at the lfs said I only have to feed him snails 2-3 times a week. is this true? he's eating the same food as the other fish in the tank (guppies, mollies, swordtails, dragon goby and bumble bee gobies.....i know i know....we are looking into setting up a seperate tank for him) we feed them bloodworms, brine shrimp, tubifex worms and I picked up some frozen krill which the puffer seems to like. I do have some ramshorns in the tank and i have seen him eat a couple of them but i need to know how many to feed him, and how often.

we're setting up a seperate tank for snails...and breeding guppies. i have 4 adult guppies, 2 juvis and like 40 fry, which i dont want. i've talked to a few people who breed their guppies and feed their puffers the fry...is this cruel or are there lots of people who do this? lol

and how old/big should he be to start acclimating him to brackish water? and then full marine (he'll be in his own tank before it gets full marine)?

here's a pic of the little guy




any advice/comments please tell me! thanks!

 

[Crepe]

My lfs has a 10" long GSP in their 1500g fw (it actually is probably more, I'm estimating) display tank. I don't know much about them though.

 

[maxima423]

you can feed them snails like 2-3 times a week, as for the fry, circle of life, so IMO its okay if you want to do it =] gl with him

 

[taylorodw]

A lot of people feed fry. If fish spawn in a community tank, 90% of fry are likely to be eaten. IMO it is not cruel (fish eat other fish, and generally anything that looks tasty and fits in their mouth). Fish will even eat their own fry. If it makes you squeamish, I wouldn't fault you for not doing it either, though

 

[bengoshi2000]

Ummm... you're right about the species only tank (30 gal per GSP). Tankmates have to be chosen carefully: http://www.greenspottedpuffer.net/tankmates.htm. I hope in the meantime you don't run into trouble: http://www.aquariumlife.net/articles/tropical-fish/64.asp.

Lots of info is a available on GSPs over at The Puffer Forum and http://www.greenspottedpuffer.net. Over the last three weeks I've done a fair bit of puffer research and ultimately decided against GSPs due to their maintenance requirements. I decided on 4-5 dwarf puffers for my 29.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

thanks for the advice everyone,

so far we haven't run into any trouble, he seems to keep to himself right now. he hunts for snails most of the time (i think lol) we have a bunch of ramshorns in the tank and i think we're going to pick up some more snails to start our snail tank