puffer fish and ph

Question
QUESTION: Hi my name is Isaiah and I have a fresh water puffer fish my question is ,I have heard that a fresh water puffer can change automaticly to a salt water fish I do'nt know how reliable this sorce is . My other question referes to a 29 gal tank that has a Silver dollar , red tailed shark , an angel fish , a blue gurami , one placostomus that is about a foot long and another that is half that , I also have a dionosaur eel ,and I'm not spelling this right , dragon guby,all of which are full grown. MY P.H. is a horibly 5.2 or lower I have tried everything I could have posibly done. I have gotten information of ph increasers made by jungle labs and still have not worked. I've gotten a bio filter and still nothing. I have made a 25% water change about once every 2 weeks with tap water . I have tested the tap and it reads 7.4 on the ph and still nothing . None of my fish have died YET but are defintly not happy , lazy is more like it . I have also noticed that all of my air stones looked as if it had been eaten away by corosion or somthing . My tank is cloudy above all others and not sure how to fix this pressing problem . I hope this information was helpfull , I thank you in addvance .    Sincerly Isaiah
ANSWER: Puffers can not go from freshwater to salt instantly.  Freshwater puffers can tolerate saltwater, but it would have to be gradual and not for long.  If you are having problems with your PH and it is not your tap water, then you have to take a good look at your tank.  Do you have shells or crushed coral, limestone?  These things can alter your PH.  Make sure everything is aquarium safe.  Your 29g tank is overstocked and you have an ammonia problem (the cloudy water).  You should be changing your water 25-30% every week.  To fix the ammonia problem, change 50% of your water every day for the next 2 days or until the ammonia levels drop (you can get your water tested at your LFS), then 25% a day until they are back to zero.  As far as the airstones go, they degrade with age and you need to buy a new one.  Get a tube one, they are less likely to crumble.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi it is me again, thank you very much for the information about the pH . I have a follow up question on the puffer fish . I did have two and one died they were in a 1g tank . I was not sure what they would eat so I feed them frozen krill . They loved it at the time and then sudenly one died with no aparent reason , but when I found him the tank was extremly cloudy. The one I have now is very small mabey the roundness of a DIME and about 1/2 inch long. He seems to enjoy the frozen krill, but it is cloudeing up the tank way to quick. My question is what else could he eat besides the frozen krill ,(to add , I chop up the pieces of krill very small and only feed him mabey 2 very small pieces, two times a day). Another  question is do they perfer hidding places , because I do have 2 guppies in with him, and he seems to try and find a hiding place , but can't . I thank you very much for all the time you have tanken to answer all my questions .          Sincerly Isaiah

Answer
I am not sure what type of puffer you have, but I can tell you that none of them are suitable community fish.  The will kill your guppies. The cloudiness was caused by ammonia.  Your tank has too many fish and you were feeding a high protein food, the bacteria in your tank couldn't keep up.  If you have one of the smaller breeds (never getting over an inch)of puffer you can get away with keeping it in that tank while it is young, but generally, there are really any fish that do well in a 1g tank (other then a betta).  I recommend you get a bigger tank.  With that said, I used to feed our puffers bloodworms, you can buy them in frozen in sheet and just chop off little pieces as needed.  They are a more appropriate size for smaller fish.  When you feed high protein food, you need to be on top of water changes 30-35% a week with a good gravel cleaning to get any leftovers.  Puffers do like to have some place to hide.  Mine liked plastic plants (if it is a bigger variety you can't use plants, they may accidentally bite them).  One also like to have a plant pot to hide in, just a clay pot on it's side.  You can also make a cave out of stone if you glue them with an aquarium safe silicon and let it cure before adding it to your tank.  I hope this helps.