Figure 8 puffers fresh or brackish?

http://www.aquasource.org/CMS/modul...s&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=103&page=1

But in short, F-8s are BW, non-community, and need marine mix - not aquarium salt.

abesapian said:

I have seen them described as both. Also will a little extra aquarium salt make my tank brackish and would that hurt my other fish? What are these figure 8 puffers like? I have read that they can be kept in a comminity tank as long as there are no long finned fish in there to. If anyone could share their experiance that would be great.

Thanks

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I agree with RTR , F-8s are BW, non-community, and need marine mix - not aquarium salt.

They should have at least a 10 gallons for themself (mine has his own tank). Some people keep a couple Figure 8's in a 20 gallon and supposedly they will coexist with gobies. My F-8 ate the goby. Each fish has its own personality and there are some that will live with others and there are some that will not. It is luck of the draw.

Indeed. Fig 8s are strictly brackish, but sadly, most people don't realize this. Tetradoan Biocellatus, my favorite puffer. Needs 10 gallons by himself, as Puffernewbee said, and needs an SG of 1.005-1.008

Be carefful as well if this fish is sold as freshwater you must not just dump it into a brackish tank. You will need to slowly acclimate it to higher salinity.

really sad and regret from my action. bought 3 puffy yesterday and one dead this morning. probably due to water SG not high enough.. right now is still <1.000 I tried increasing it slowly for the past few days but it seems not going up at all. i used sea salt which sold in supermarket. is it recommended to do so? or ONLY marine salt will do the job? with SG 1.005-1.008, can my freshwater plant survive?

You need marine salt sold for marine aquariums. It is set up with special buffers etc... that are needed. Also a SG of 1 is freshwater. You need a to add quite a bit of salt mixture to get the SG up. Most freshwater plants will start dying off around 1.004 SG. Sometimes Java Fern can survive up to 1.010 SG but not usually.

another sad event... another just died when i return from work.. what a sad sad day... 2 died... the only survivor is the one which eat alot of worm but tonight he seems not having good apetiate at all... i have to feed him manually and he manage to eat one complete bloodworm.. the rest scattered all around the ground...

i've added salt into the tank now and it reaches 1.000 SG. gonna do .002 increase each week now.. hope to see my puffer go healthy and happy...

as for the plant, i guess nothing can really help it unless it able to adapt slowly to the water salinity..

Also puffers need to eat crunchy foods like snails or their beak can over develope. I would start a new sthread if I were you asking questions about diet etc... There are a lot of good puffer people here but they might not see this since it is in another person's post.

thanks... getting proper snail for them is tough over here but ghost shrimp is easy. so probably today gonna get some shrimp for his menu.