Green Spotted Puffer

[bobbi]

Okay, so I'm still very fresh to the whole fish thing. In fact, I don't even have a tank of my own yet. My boyfriend does, however--a 55 gallon freshwater tank filled with semi-aggressive fish--and recently accompanying him to the pet store, I fell in love with one of these adorable Green Spotted Puffers. We spoke to someone who worked there for over an hour about this fish to see if it would be suitable for the tank. He assured us that adding a a tablespoon of aquarium salt per 5 gallons would suffice for him to adjust to freshwater. We researched him (now known as "Sushi") a bit more before bringing him to his new home, but now are finding that as he grows older he will need his own tank because he will supposedly become more aggressive and will eventually need to live in a full saltwater aquarium...

I'm more than happy to get Sushi a separate tank if need be, or at the very least, return him to the store (although I'd rather not if I can provide him a proper home). I'm just entirely unsure how big of a tank I'd need. This will be my very first aquarium and one I hadn't really intended on getting just yet, so the smaller and more affordable, the better (with little Sushi's health in mind of course). My questions remain:

How big will the tank need to be?
How long until he needs to be moved to a new home out of the freshwater?
Are there really no other fish that could go in there?
Is it even realistic to have a saltwater tank as your first?

thanks!

[Fishalicious]

Green Spotted Puffers need a minimum of 29 Gallons if they are on their own.... they are very intelligent and need stimluation as they will otherwise get bored and start attacking other fish or just fade away. Stimulation is from hunting live snails as well as changing things up in the tank every week at waterchange - add little caves etc...things it can investigate.

When born the little guys are born in Freshwater and straight away follow the stream to brackish water (low end) as they mature they slowly move to High End brackish and I know folks who keep them in full saltwater happily.

Their teeth will grow and if not provided with hard crustations like snails, shrimp, cockles etc. their teeth will overgrow and they will not be able to eat anymore and die. Best thing you can do for yor puffer is start a little snail farm which you can do in a just a jam jar and adding a few pond snails so they breed.