LF people's experience with GSP in reefs

[91Atrac]

As the title states.

I still have my build in the works. Would love to have a puffer in the options for the tank until the puffer matures and takes a species only tank.

I wanna see what kind of ratio there is from members who have tried the green spotted puffer in reef community tanks.

Mine will be in a 45g mixed reef cube ( that's the plan anyways )

Please post up the good and bad news like coral eating or aggression towards other fish and inverts like clams and shrimp.



Thanks





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[Toddrtrex]

For a second there I thought you were referring to green star polyps.....

I have a blue spotted puffer (( Canthigaster papua )), which isn't the same, but thought I would get you started.

All my shrimps hide now -- used to be out all the time.
Had to remove my clams to my other tanks, was going after them like crazy.
Hasn't shown any real aggression towards other tank mates, in fact I would almost call mine a wimp. :)

[Peter T]

I am in the same boat is Toddrtrex; I keep a blue spotted puffer as well.

However, I do not have any ornamental shrimp in my tank but do keep mantis shrimp. The puffer gives my mantis shrimp a wide berth and seems to know to not mess with it when it is out and about. My puffer loves to nip at my snails' feet when they are out during the daylight hours.

I used to have a mixed reef consisting of SPS, LPS, and soft corals; I have a mixed reef consisting of LPS and soft corals now. He ate my softball sized colony of birdsnest and all of my acropora frags. He doesn't even look at any of my LPS or softies though.

As for tank mates. My blue spotted puffer is the biggest fish in my tank but is also the most peaceful fish. He is currently housed with a 6-line wrasse, a filefish, and an occelaris clownfish. He gets bullied by the filefish from time to time when I feed the fish crab claws and they have to eat in close proximity to each other. I've never seen him fight back or even show any aggression to any of the fish.

[Toddrtrex]

Peter reminded me -- mine, too, will go after my snails feet, and killed to urchins. Oddly enough mine leaves my green bird's nest alone.

[username in use]

You say "until the puffer matures and takes up a species tank"

Why not just put it in a species tank to begin with and not worry about re-homing your established fish, or having to catch it in an established tank?

[Elem7777]

I've got 2 Green Spotted Puffers in a 90 gallon right now, the only other fish currently in there are a Fairy Wrasse and Algae Blenney, which the puffers leave alone. One of my puffers has always been slightly larger than the other and occasionally that one will nip at the smaller one during feeding time, it hasn't left any significant wounds though and the smaller one, which is a more aggressive eater, still gets plenty of food. Despite the inter species nipping I've never seen either take a bite at the Wrasse despite the fact that it feeds with them off the same food aggressively.

I've also got a mix of soft and LPS corals, at first they did nip at the corals, even took a few small bites out of a Duncan, but they stopped pretty quickly, I think they were just curious. They also ignore the many small feather dusters that came with my LR and have really exploded in population.

I do have a clean up crew consisting of a few hermit crabs, Mexican Turbos, Astreas, Nerites, Ceriths, and Nassarius. While they've gotten curious about all of them in the past the only ones they continue to harass are the small Ceriths and Nassarius snails, the big ones they ignore as they're just to small to do anything to them, and despite the harassment my Nassarius population is still fairly high, though I did buy a butt load of them for this very reason.

The puffers have managed to get a few hermits, but typically they completely ignore them even if the hermit is walking around right next to them. I know at least one of the hermits they killed got its shell stuck in a crevice in some LR and was killed taking a walk sans shell.

[Khemul]

Puffers in general seem to be the most personality driven fish out there. What I mean by this is that you usually can't define the behavior of the whole species with puffers. You define a range of common behaviors. For instance, Tobies tend towards calmer personalities (although even they get the occasional 'homical maniac' personality). Just about all puffers enjoy the game of "Is it edible?", but just how far they are willing to take this game depends on the above personality concept.


GSP's in my experience get the full range. They can be anywhere from calm and friendly to homicidal. And they can change from youth to adulthood. It is entirely up to the individual fish with them. There are plenty of cases of people keeping them in full reef tanks without a single problem and plenty more of them murdering everything that moves. I believe The Puffer Forum has a long-running thread in their marine section on people's experiences with GSP's in saltwater tanks.

[91Atrac]

You say "until the puffer matures and takes up a species tank"

Why not just put it in a species tank to begin with and not worry about re-homing your established fish, or having to catch it in an established tank?

Is like to keep a community that's why. This is going to be a project show piece for my plans to order sell and stock fish for my community since there isn't any sw shops outside the city.

I've had these guys and heard they can get over 10" and live over 10 years but possibly not in full marine.

I wonder if someone's had there puffer that long.


I'm pretty keen on adding one to the tank and have some frags to test its curiosity.


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[91Atrac]

For a second there I thought you were referring to green star polyps.....




Haha I knew I'd catch someone ;)


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[91Atrac]

Has anyone kept a pair of GSP's together?

How big have you red or seen them get? I've had 2 figure 8's in my 30g brackish and they were super happy. Yes they did the "tornado" fights but generally were happy together. Just gotta get them young enough.


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[Elem7777]

They can live 10+ years, lots of fish can, but GSPs don't get any bigger than 6'', some will never hit 5''. Perhaps you're thinking of Ceylon puffers? They're similiar but get a bit bigger at around 8'', they're brackish too but I don't know if they can do full marine as well as GSPs do.

[91Atrac]

Nope definitely heard that GSP's grew larger on some YouTube videos anyways. Maybe some bs ones. Is it a bad idea to keep 2-3 in a macro algae tank. 45-50g? 2 is better I think


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[91Atrac]

Anybody else have experience with this? Gonna be planning the tank setup soon.


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[91Atrac]

Got one in my tank so hopefully he does good and stays away from coral