Considering they can live into their teens & grow 6", I'd suggest he upgrades.
I will suggest it to him
Green spotted puffer
- Thread starter Chobits16
- Start date
I will suggest it to him
Those guys are 6", BTW. I kept them in a 55g & re-homed them because they needed more swimming room.
You might have been confusing figure 8 puffers for green spotted puffers. Figure 8s can survive in freshwater as long as the hardness and pH are quite high. The best way to get those levels is to make it a very low-end brackish tank by adding marine salt and using crushed coral or aragonite sand as a substrate.
The green spotted puffer (GSP), on the other hand, is born in freshwater/low-end brackish and gradually moves into higher and higher salinities as they get older until they arrive at near marine conditions. Pufferpunk already addressed their size requirements. They get much larger than most people think, and they are quite aggressive (no tankmates other than maybe other GSPs with a large enough tank!).
If you want to stick with freshwater, then you could consider one of the true freshwater puffers like dwarf puffers, which you could easily have several in a 20g with enough decor (they need to be able to get away from each other and need a ratio of several females for each male).
Here's a link to a page with freshwater puffers. Click on the pictures to open the profiles, and you will find tank size requirements there. And here's a link to an article on feeding puffers. These are both to The Puffer Forum, which pufferpunk owns. She definitely knows her stuff!
The green spotted puffer (GSP), on the other hand, is born in freshwater/low-end brackish and gradually moves into higher and higher salinities as they get older until they arrive at near marine conditions. Pufferpunk already addressed their size requirements. They get much larger than most people think, and they are quite aggressive (no tankmates other than maybe other GSPs with a large enough tank!).
If you want to stick with freshwater, then you could consider one of the true freshwater puffers like dwarf puffers, which you could easily have several in a 20g with enough decor (they need to be able to get away from each other and need a ratio of several females for each male).
Here's a link to a page with freshwater puffers. Click on the pictures to open the profiles, and you will find tank size requirements there. And here's a link to an article on feeding puffers. These are both to The Puffer Forum, which pufferpunk owns. She definitely knows her stuff!
