green puffers

Question
I have a couple of puffers in a freshwater tank. When two of them died I did some research and found that they need a saltwater tank (sorry, brackish sounds like its dirty). Anyway, I read what you wrote about setting up a tank, do I need to make the transition slowly for the fish so they don't get a shock, or just put them from the fresh to the salt water? Any info you could give me would be wonderful. They are really so cute, I would hate to lose any more of them. Thankds

Answer
Hi Terri:  Yes... you would move them slowly from freshwater to brackish to salt.  The transition must be done slowly so as to not stress the fish out.  I would start with one table spoon of salt per ten gallons of water and then at the next water change (30%) add another one table spoon per ten gallons of water and repeat until you reach 1.022 specific gravity.  You will need a hydrometer to test the gravity of the water. The whole process should take about 1.5 months to complete... Just a note... 1.022 salinity is a saltwater tank... which puffers require when they reach adult size.  dave