Spotted Puffer FIsh And Filter Help

[Fish-Noobie]

i just bought some spotted puffer fish from my local pisces fish store there not that big.... around 1-2 inces. my uncle has a giant tank filter that touches the ground from my tank(tank is on a table) im wondering if i should use his or keep mine, mine is a 30 gallon filter his is around what 200? and im wondering what to feed my fish if this stuff is really hard to understand post and ill rewrite it. and my tank is about a 25 gallon tank.

 

[Pufferpack]

I would stick to the 30 gal filter, and maybe a small internal filter (Fluval 2 plus is nice) unless you can control the flow rate on the bigger filter. If you can't control the flow rate on the larger filter the current will probably be too strong for a 25 gal tank.
You mentioned that you bought "Some" spotted puffers from Pisces (I'm guessing you are in Calgary), so they will probably have explaned that these are Brackish water fish (need salt in the water) but may not have told you that you should use marine salts rather than "Aquarium" salt, due to added minerals in the marine salt that the fish need to stay healthy.
A 25 gal tank is a little small for more than one Green Spotted puffer and you will likely need to upgrade to a 55 gal tank (for a pair, usual recomendation is 30 gal/GSP) in about 1 year or there may be problems with aggression (one will probably kill the other one once they start to fight).
For feeding you will need live or frozen foods, bloodworm, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp when they are small, and muscles, cockles, and other crunchy seafoods when they get bigger (anything from the seafood section at the grocery store, except fish) Although they will readily kill and eat other fish, this is not usually a healthy diet for them and shouldn't be encouraged. You will also want to regularly feed them snails to help keep the tooth growth in check, the staff at the lfs will dig them out of the plant tanks or sump for you.

 

[Fish-Noobie]

are there any other kinds of spotted puffers cause at pisces they just scruched them up in like what looked like a 3g tank or does the aggresion grow when they get older, i can possibly get my uncle to make me a tank ( hes a construction guy)
i dunno hes really good wit fish...and for the big filter the current would be to strong and it would like kill the puffers or so? one more thing are gsp alot of money cause the ones i bought where 20 for 2.....i dont think they would sell them like that if they where really aggrissive.

 

[Pufferpack]

I have seen the spotted puffers at pisces and they are definately Green Spotted puffers - Tetraodon nigroviridis. As the lfs only houses them for a short period they can get away with cramming them into a small tank. As juvies they are not as aggressive, but once they mature they can be nasty.
About $10-15/fish is what I usually see them listed for so the price seems fine to me, as for the 2 for $20 they will sometimes list them like that to sell them quicker (same price but looks like a deal), and they are usually more concerned with moving inventory than they are with fish compatability....if your fish kill each other 6 months after you get them that means you will likely be buying more fish....money, money, money.
Unfortunately there are not a lot of knowledgeable folks at the stores that deal with puffers, Pisces has some good folks but still not a lot of puffer info, they even have a pair of Ceylon puffers (they were there 2 days ago) labled as XXL Pea puffers, I have informed them that they are Ceylons and need to be in brackish water, hopefully they re-labled them.

as for the current being too strong, I don't think it would kill the puffers, but they may have trouble swimming comfortably (always be fighting a strong current), and the current might end up blowing all your gravel and decorations to one side of the tank.

 

[Fish-Noobie]

ok thank u for ur help i might return then if they become to aggrisive and just goto petland and buy some figure 8 puffers instead....... and ill prob be geting my uncle to get me like a 100-150g tank so i can load it up with tank mates since i hear figure 8's are quite social. i might even get some parahas since i had them befor they where fun untill one lost all its color and finally died and my lobster climbed up my filter tube and ran away hes dead somewhere in my house.

btw do u have msn so i can bother u 24/7 jk haha if u do and ur list is not full can u put up ur email or even if u have aim.

 

[Pufferpack]

I'm not much of a chatter so haven't got MSN or AIM but I'll send my e-mail if you want. I check it every couple days so your best bet is to PM me on this site as I usually check in once a day