fresh/brackish/salt conversion

subliminal_kush

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Feb 20, 2007
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wondering if someone could help me, i have a green spotted puffer in a 10 gallon tank (hes a little guy), will be converting him from fresh to brackish water in this tank (bought him freshwater), my question is how quickly can this process be done? the idea was to go from fresh to brackish in my 10, then move him into my 29 and go from brackish to salt, then into a future 55 gallon, need to know how long it will take
 
Quoted from this GSP article (be sure to read the whole thing):
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum...cus/an-introduction-to-green-spotted-puffers/

"I suggest keeping GSPs in low-end brackish water when juvenile <2", (in a specific gravity, or SG of 1.005-10, at 2-4", medium BW (SG 1.010-15) and adult >4″ SW (SG 1.018-22). You must use marine salt. You will need a hydrometer to measure the salinity. It takes a cup of salt/5 gal of water to raise the SG .005. If the puffer you purchase is in FW at the store, then you should start out your cycled tank in FW and raise the SG .002/week, until you reach the desired SG."
 
thanks for the info, is the gsp a quick grower?

I was just going to ask how fast do they grow? At that rate it would take about 2 1/2 years.

Also, I would recommend a refractometer over a hydrometer (if you don't have one already). They're more accurate and a lot of hydrometers don't go that low.
 
Refractometers are great but as far as BW fish, your SG doesn't have to be as "dead on" as in a reef tank.
 
Refractometers are great but as far as BW fish, your SG doesn't have to be as "dead on" as in a reef tank.

True. If I remember correctly though, I think my old plastic hydrometers only went down to 1.010 or 1.012. I just figured since in this instance it has to be a gradual change from fresh to salt the refractometer scale goes lower starting from 1.000 so it would be easier to see the SG rather than just guessing.
 
Mine grew from 2-6" within 2 years.

There are a few brands of hydrometers that start at 0. Off the top of my head: SeaTest & Instant Ocean.
 
Nice! I only ever used 2 different brands and theirs didn't go down that low. One was Coralife's Deep Six and I can't remember the other one. I remember trying a hyposalinity treatment and I couldn't use them.


sk- if you follow the article's advice in post #1, you can just add the salt depending on how many inches they're growing, regardless of how long it takes.

Edited to add, just popped into my head- I think the other brand was Red Sea.
 
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