I've actually kept a brackish water puffer for about the last 4 years or so. These are great fish! It's a spotted green puffer (don't know the scientific name off the top of my head). The store I got him from actually had him in a salt tank, which is where he went when I took him home. A few months later I was doing some looking on the internet and found that he was actually brackish.
Many brackish species (including this one), can live in either salt or fresh, but are most happy in brackish water. I put him in a 10 Galon tank with water at the same conditions as in my salt tank, and then slowly over the next month adjusted the SG down to 1.008. I use standard saltwater salt (IO is what I used to use for that tank).
Do you know what species the puffer at the LFS is? That would allow you to try to find more info about it. If it helps, a spotted green puffer is green with black spots, and a white (grey if feeling pissed off) belly. The belly usually looks some-what pot-bellied. He will often have his tail closed and may have it cocked arround to one side or the other. Mine is about 2" long.
Mine lives in a little 10 Galon, at an average specific gravity of 1.008. 10% changes should done weekley alternating between 1.005 and 1.010. Frankly I rarely manage this and just do about a 25% change monthly.
He does love live brine shrimp (used to have a dwarf lion that would only eat live brine in the salt tank with him), but I feed him standard Wardly
shrimp pellets. I ocassionaly get small freshwater snails for him as a treat. These puffers will eat all you can give them untill they are rolling arround on the bottom of the aquarium. Yes, I mean this literally!
Be careful not to over feed.
There are many
brackish water fish, including the whole molly group, which is usually sold as a fresh water fish. I've kept a pair of sailfin mollys in the same tank with my puffer, which was fine until they got so big they started to harass him. The spotted green puffer is very peaceful (except to things like snails, crabs, and shrimp).
I addore this fish. Very friendly and fun to watch. Unfortuantely, I had to drop him with a fish sitting friend when I moved so I haven't seen him in a few months
. She tells me he is doing fine. My next trick--figure out how to move him from CA to TX...
These are pretty hardy fish and easy to care for. Just think, at the time I got this guy, I was a rank beginner and had only had my very first tank setup for a month or so.
Anway, if you have any questions about these fish, please feel free to ask me!
