T. Sabahensis : Coolest fish I knew.

[Umbrella]

Pardon me but I noticed fishbase listed T. Sabahensis as a Freshwater fish only. We have Sabahensis listed under brackish. Can we get it corrected or can someone please direct me toward some literature as to from which waters they originate?

I had a Sabahensis and he died shortly after acclimating him to brackish. Now, he had IP's and wouldn't eat but the water could have also been a contributing factor. ( Please no tears! I had enough come out when he passed >.< and I actually witnessed his final moments )

Also if you could please think about this scenario ( you may have already said this somewhere before ):

Suppose there is this fish that you have and you just found out that it lives is freshwater all the time... BUT it travels into light brackish for various reasons ( eating, spawning, etc.. ). However it will always return to pure freshwater within a few hours. Basically what I am saying is it is a FW species that needs access to light brackish at its will.

Question #1 : How do you duplicate that in an aquarium ? Like .. how can you make your tank fresh, then light brackish then freshwater again ? You can't. Unless you have 2 tanks.. which is pointless because you would stress them every time you move them.

Question #2 : With the above in mind... would you recommend against acquiring said species of fish ?

Thanks guys. I just wanted to ask those questions because I will most likely never come across another T. Sabahensis and he was indeed my favorite and I'd like to know. This is the only fish I have ever known that would actually let you touch / hold him or whatever you wanted. No other fish lets you even get close to touching them. I am sure you could probably do this with another puffer if you had it as a baby or if it was a larger, smarter one like a Mbu... but this was a T. Sabahensis and he was a full grown adult when I got him... and he had this attitude.

I just wanted to share. By no means do I recommend actually touching your puffs tho. #1 they need their slime and your hands don't help it. #2 They can be poisonous. #3 Most would prob. Puff and/or bite you.

But with this dude... I could stick my finger in his mouth ( if i wanted to ) and he would be cool with me doing that. Truly a one of a kind fishy. Kinda like a gentle giant ( as he was 6.2 inches ). He was also my biggest puff.

Autopsy report to follow. Though I am 100% certain it was an IP related death.

-UMB

[Myaj]

Sorry you lost yours.

Hilly has been having some good success with keeping them, do a search on Sabahensis and posts by Hilly, and you should come up with some good reading. He was writing an article about them as well, but I think that's on hold.

I *think* he's keeping his in freshwater, but I'm not positive without looking it up. Its just one of those species we don't know enough yet, and there's a good chance the Pedia should be updated.

[Umbrella]

Sorry you lost yours.

Hilly has been having some good success with keeping them, do a search on Sabahensis and posts by Hilly, and you should come up with some good reading. He was writing an article about them as well, but I think that's on hold.

I *think* he's keeping his in freshwater, but I'm not positive without looking it up. Its just one of those species we don't know enough yet, and there's a good chance the Pedia should be updated.

Ah! Very good, thank you. I'll try to get in touch with Hilly so I can share my experience. I purchased 3 fish from one tank and the Sabahensis was 1/3. But I still have no idea WTF the other 2 are. Many have said they look GSP to them but I was kind of hoping... female Saba ? Ima go do the search thingy now.

Anyways, thx again Myaj.

-UMB

[Umbrella]

http://thepuffer.s464.sureserver.com/fo ... e8c5fed8df

Ok.. one thing I'd like to say here...

I'm confused.

Lookin at those pics in that post... many people said right off the bat to get him high brackish or full marine...cause he LOOKS LIKE a GSP.

Well... what if he isn't a GSP ?!?!? Congratulations! You just helped me kill him.

All I am saying is... lets LOOK with our eyes and make a decision with our brains. No assumptions.

I say this because the fish in the post above has green for sure.. but where is the SPOTS ?! There are no spots. That is a swirly design pattern. Also the pattern isn't solid little black dots. Another reason to not assume its a GSP.

He even said in his post that the people who caught the fish said they did so way INLAND in a FRESHWATER stream/river. With that in mind... why would a fish or fishes go SO far out of their way into water that they shouldn't be in ? Don't you think thats a bit stupid ? If all the fish were so dumb as to swim too far into improper water they would wipe themselves out. Clearly they belong there.

[Umbrella]

omg..

http://thepuffer.s464.sureserver.com/fo ... bc#p125217

You know... I have 2 Puffs like this. Go figure they were immediately identified as GSP in like .4 seconds. Low and behold someone actually suggests it may be a tiny Saba ?!!?

One can only hope so. And I'll tell ya why ! Because I keep sayin there are 'two' kinds of GSP... well that about seals the deal captain. These so called GSP's absolutely HATE salt. They go from moving around and being happy, to sitting on the bottom.. doing nothing but look miserable. One actually died, further proving my point.

Yous guys tell me something I don't know now

[Myaj]

Well, long story short, without genetic testing I think there's no way to know for sure with the younger ones.

Its only as they get older that they start to develop the differently shaped heads, somewhat different color, at least I think so. Every one I've seen that's positivly ID'd as a Sab has been a quite large specimen (plus, I think they grow larger than GSP's in general). I mean, even with adults, often no one is absolutely positive what they have, until they find out how it reacts to salt.

Keep in mind, 99% of the "spotted puffer" population out there IS GSP.. Sab's are pretty dang rare, although they've just recently started showing up scattered around. I don't think I've seen as many people with pictures of suspected sab's over the past 5 years as I've seen over the last 6 months.

If they are going to start showing up more often, we definately need to get the info figured out.. but how to tell them apart definately? I don't know! They don't have a different amount of fin rays, or a different shaped nostril.. its just more of a "feeling" when a puffer doesn't quite look like a GSP and it also doesn't like salt... so its *probably* a sab? Is a Sab a completely different species, is it a GSP relative that sort of migrated off the common path and adapted to freshwater somewhere along the line?

People just aren't used to seeing them enough yet to think of this relatively rare breed when ID'ing a puffer that looks so obvioulsy like a GSP. The differences are pretty minor, even for an experienced puffer keeper.

I would hope ANY fishkeeper, who noticed a severe, downward turn in the behavior of their fish when salt was added to the tank, would immediately take action to remove the salt. That's just common sense.

[Umbrella]

Yes, you have many good points there. Many of the puffs I have seen in the 'Saba' pics I fear might be an even more different 2 species. lol.

You see, I purchased a total of 3. 2 were similar and the 3rd was totally different. He was different in body shape and pattern... but they were together in the same tank when I bought them.

Looked kinda like this:
#1 ( not my photo )
http://thepuffer.s464.sureserver.com/fo ... &mode=view

#2 ( not my photo )
http://thepuffer.s464.sureserver.com/fo ... &mode=view

and #3 ( please note he is way different )
http://thepuffer.s464.sureserver.com/fo ... 1.JPG.html

These are the 2 of them side by side:
http://thepuffer.s464.sureserver.com/fo ... 4.JPG.html

And then there is Hilly's:
http://thepuffer.s464.sureserver.com/fo ... ewsIndex=1

Oh yes! The most important factor ... the Teeth! MY Saba's teeth (#3) looked like a little baby's teeth, where as the other 2 have huge chompers.

[Myaj]

We need to get more people with these fish together and try to find more ways of telling them apart.

The teeth one would be good, assuming you can get them to smile for you!

[Corvus]

Original sabahensis were caught at:
approximate coordinates: 05°30' N 118°33' E

Localities: Pinang River, Gaja River, Dewhurst Bay, East coast residence.

Can have a look at a map
http://www.borneo.org/sabah.gif

The river localities are freshwater (and miles away from the coast), but the Bay is brackish to marine. So, the original T. sabahensis can live in all these salinities.

ID problem is that original sabahensis all were smaller ones below 11 cm (4.5") maybe juveniles and had to some degree different markings than the ones referred to here as sabahensis.

If you want all the information about the real T. sabahensis you need to read: Dekkers, W. J. 1975: Review of the Asiatic freshwater puffers of the genus Tetraodon Linnaeus, 1758 (Pisces, Tetraodontiformes, Tetraodontidae). Bijdr. Dierkd. v. 45 (no. 1): 87-142. Can be ordered at any public library.

When people tell you, were the fish were caught, this is not reliable at all in my experience.

[Hilly]

Fishfan recently posted his was caught inland in India IIRC. Now Borneo and India arent that close there is open Ocean so if Sabahensis is just found in Borneo then its possible these fish aren't but then again they could populate India as well.

Mine was listed as Giant Spotted Puffer, others have been listed as Giant Indian Puffer. So is it a possibilitythat there distribution is not just confined to Borneo and can go much further a field or its a totally different species. I dont think salinity is a great issue with these fish we think are Sabahensis, they seem very adaptable, mine spent months in brackish as thats what i got him in. The main killer of these seems to be the parasites.

High or low end brackish or fresh, they seem to be highly adaptable.
Sorry fo your loss.

[FishFan]

Noting that they were extremely sociable toward each other and non-aggressive toward other fish, we immediately fell in love with these fish. All 7 of the similar looking fish we've had occasion to observe do not regard other fish as food and are not attracted by the movement of other fish. They completely ignore live feeder guppies and goldfish. When offered, feeder fish end up being removed from the tank after days of peaceful coexistence. We've never seen nipping or lunging at tankmates. When we've offered fish foods such as frozen silversides, the food was nibbled then rejected, unlike the meat from frozen shrimp, squid and clams which are gluttonously consumed. In our experience, GSP are highly attracted to the movements of other fish.

We've seen these fish sold in 2 LFS's at about 6" as Green Spotted Puffers, Burmese Puffers and as Giant Burmese Puffers. At one point both Burmese and Giant Burmese Puffers were offered at the same time by our favorite LFS. The fish were identical in size and appearance but had different names and prices. Over a period of time we purchased 4 that originated from one distributor at $35 and two from the other distributor at $50. The more expensive fish gleefully ate dried krill in the LFS's tank. The 4 other fish were not fed until after we purchased them.

The fish sold at the lower price point appeared to be in poorer health from the start. All four of the lower priced fish died within a month of purchase. The trouble with these 4 fish began with their first feeding. All 4 ate vigorously the first time, then regurgitated what was eaten. Two of the fish never ate again, while the other 2 would eat, regurgitate, then refuse to eat the same food again. We treated these fish with praziquantel and other parasite treatments suspecting internal parasites or gill flukes but with no effect. The 4 lower priced fish slowly went downhill in health catching a wide variety of different infections before death.

Our efforts to save these fish included taking one to the best exotics vet in our area, who could find nothing wrong with the fish. Based on our observations with these 4 fish we concluded that the fish sold at the lower price point were very likely victims of cyanide fishing (which we've read is a common problem with GSP's). The deaths of these fish caused us tremendous anxiety and resulted in more than a few shed tears. The reason we're posting about this experience on the internet is so others who experienced the same thing with one of these wonderful fish won't automatically conclude that their fish's death was their fault.

Some of the things we observed with these fish that may be of interest are:

1) Because salt can be used as a treatment for a number of common fish ailments one of the fish was taken gradually to .005 sg over a two week period. Based on information stating these fish were brackish to full marine we were intending to take that fish to .009 sg, a level that will kill even the most salt resistant known strains of diseases such as Costia. We stopped adding salt at .005 sg due to immediate decline observed each time salt was added to the tank.
Likewise, reducing salt brought about very noticeable improvement after each adjustment.

2) These fish are extremely sensitive to ammonia. Any measurable amount of ammonia in the water brings about a stress reaction even in healthy fish.

3) These fish may or may not be T. sabahensis (Dekkers 1975) (aka T. fluvatalis sabahensis = archaic (Dekkers 1975))

4) These fish seem to like dim lighting and are very active when in near absolute darkness. One of our two fish develops a black belly whenever the lights are on. According to Fishbase, T. sabahensis is demersal (bottom dwelling).

5) Two fish owners on this thread show fish with similar bodies but slightly different patterns from the ones we've seen. The patterns on our fish are larger and more irregular. It is possible that we are discussing fish from two similar looking species or that are varieties from different niches. Hilly's fish and the fish in Umbrella's third pic may originate from different waters from the similar looking fish we've obtained. This could explain why Hilly's experiences are somewhat different from ours. The taxonomy of these puffers isn't complete. As was also pointed out, distributors don't always have accurate information about where their fish came from. Providing misleading information could, for example, prevent the completion from finding a new source of supply.

6) We've recently heard some speculation that these fish are hybrids. The buyer at the LFS where we bought these fish recently said they'd heard these fish may be the result of a hybrid between T. mbu and T. fluvatalis.

7) (Edit) Our profile photo shows one of our fish yawning. We don't know how Umbrella would classify the teeth.

[Nick]

I seriously doubt a T.mbu T.fluvitalis hybrid is possible. Mbu range inland rivers and in lake Tanganyika nowhere near Burma or India where these puffers are from. Mbu at reproductive size would be well over ten times the mass of ceylons at breeding age, just not going to happen IMO. Sounds like wild speculation based on a slight similarity in body markings between these and Mbu puffers and ignorance of the wild range of Mbu.

[FishFan]

Nick,

We're inclined to agree with your conclusion that these fish are not T. mbu x T. fluvatalis. The geographical impossibilities not withstanding, the only similarity with T. mbu is the pattern where spots have open centers. The streamline body shape and background color seen in T. mbu are absent.

Here are some photos showing our fish more clearly. Tator appears more slender as a result of the photograph. They are both fat little green footballs. Tator's black stomach is a result of the light; he apparently doesn't like the aquarium lights.

Photo of Spud (Fish is about 6.5" long)


Photo of Tator (Fish is about 6.5" long) Note the "T" on Tater's head.

[Nick]

Hilly's experiences of their photosensitivity seem to match with yours from what he has said. I also find it interesting that juveniles of this species do not seem to turn up on the market, it's possible that their breeding patterns are different from what is typical in puffers and they simply aren't collected where the juveniles are to be located. While most speculation on discerning this species from the Green Spotted puffer seems to focus on the irregular shape typical of their spots, I think that is a red herring, as Tator there has very regular round spots in most places. From the photographs I have observed, the discerning characteristic is actually the areas between the spots, GSP are bright between their spots even as they grow large, while your puffers as well as Hilly's have a corona of brightness surrounding the spots(be they very round and regular or barely "spots" at all) and darkened areas filling the bulk of the inter-spot region.

[FishFan]

Nick,

Dictator's spots look a bit less round and regular in a top view. Regardless, we think you're exactly right about the fill in pattern between the dots you described as a corona. All the photos of the puffers we're inclined to call T. sabahensis are unique in having a netting or corona of darker color that fills in the areas between the dots. This is something I have not seen in the various brackish puffers sold as GSBs.

In your experience would you also agree with the observation that these fish always seem to have a number of spots with open centers (donuts rather than solid round dots ).

The size of the pattern and the regularity of the pattern seem to vary somewhat from fish to fish. These could be regional variations.

The fact the fish we've seen for sale have all been uniformly large 5.5+ inches suggests they were wild caught, possibly in their spawning area. BTW, in this area the supply has dried up. we no longer see these fish offered for sale.

R&A