green-spotted puffer

Question
i just purchased two of the little things today and have the water that they came in, how do i make more of the saltwater that they need to keep them alive and happy?  i have never had a saltwater tank before and am needing help with them.

Answer
Hi Rebecca. You should have already set the tank up and had it running before you purchased the fish. These puffers can acclimate to fresh water when they are young but should eventually be turned over to brackish water and finally to full saltwater. You will need to get yourself some marine salt mix and a hydrometer, if you don't already have them. However, if you don't already have the tank set up the outlook is not so good for these fish. If you already have a fresh water tank set up and running then you should be fine for now with them in there they will just need to be acclimated to the fresh water slowly. Turning your freshwater tank into a brackish tank is not so hard. You can gradually adjust the salinity by adding a little marine salt to some of your tanks water, wait for it to dissolve and then slowly add it to your tank. After some time has passed check the salinity. If you are not getting a reading then do it again the next day and continue with this each day until you are getting a salinity of 1.010. This will be at a good brackish level. The puffers can live in this for a while until they start to get bigger at which time you may want to change them over to full salt water. Remember to add salt to the right salinity when doing your partial water changes. Get the salt level correct in a bucket before you add the new water to your tank. There are allot of things that go along with keeping a saltwater tank and I could sit here and write an entire book to explain it to you. In the mean time do some research and some reading on how to set up and maintain a saltwater tank so you can prepare yourself for switching your puffers over to saltwater when the time comes.