Takifugu ocellatus

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 2:50 am

Unbelievably, mine is s till here after a couple of years. He or she is in a 150l at 1.012 sg at a temp of between 10 and 20 C depending on season. Filtration is a large intetnal box, a large cannister external, a powerhead with venturi, two protien skimmers for aeration only and a UV.

Diet is as varied as I can make it...

Anyone else have one or comments?

The only concern I have is that it is probably stunted. No growth at all ovet the two years.

Maybe no remedy for that?

Soggy

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:02 am

Sorry for spelling. Using an iphone!

Christie_ZXR · Post by **Christie_ZXR** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 4:13 am

Woohoo! Another fugu owner! lol

Meet Mushroom:

I'm at 20 degrees all the time. Mine's a 4ft 170L tank. Tried dropping his temp several times, and I get a really bad reaction, so I've stuck at 20. Got a G6 for filtration and salt at 1.020.
I've had my little guy since sept last year, and he's grown tons in that time. Couldn't tell you what I've done to get him to grow so much, keeping him has been a lot of guesswork and a lot of luck

He started out in a 100L tank at 1.005

LFS told me he's "a bit like a fig 8" to keep, then I found out the truth! Que emergency tank hunting spree! lol
He eats mainly cockles, and I often leave the empty shells in since he seems content to chew them occasionally, so good for his little teeth. He's getting a lot of tetra bloodworm sachets recently, since he goes totally nuts for them! But he gets all sorts of other things too, the odd bit of krill as a treat because he loves it (don't recommend that fed regular, I'm told it has been linked to lockjaw) sometimes lancefish and mussells. Tried him on locusts since the nutritional value of them seems to be perfect for him, but after seeing him bite the bum off one, never again!! Haven't got it in me to bop them on their heads myself and I'm dubious about buying frozen ones in case anything's been added. I soak everything in vitamins before he gets it too.

Got any pics of your little guy? What's his behavior like? What made you go for a lower salinity? (Sorry, 20 qs! lol)

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 5:40 am

Hi there and hi to mushroom

He or she is a roughly thirty inch cube with a deep sand bed - a mix of honey and coral sand. There are rocks and lots of plastic plants. Ambient light which seems to suit.

Does not pace that i can see but a little shy. Tank is in a northern uk garage so not much disturbance unless I go to feed. Mine goes nuts for bloodworm too although I doubt there is much nutrition there. Crabs legs, live crabs, earthworms, mysis, periwinkles and mussels are fed plus vits where I can soak...

I'll try a pic a bit later

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 5:44 am

The low salinity was just historical, the level it was in at previous owners. Can also get more oxygen in I suppose. Have not measured mine recently but it was saturated for the salinity of the time...

puffykid · Post by **puffykid** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 11:54 am

mushroom is freaking adorable = ]

Post by **Corvus** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:04 pm

Congratulations! "a couple of years" sounds very good for this species.
How long approx? Was it 2 years or was the puffer in the tank of someone else before you got it?

I wonder if 150 l (around 37 gallons) has something to do with the stunting. They don't get very big though 6" max. in general. How big is this puffer?

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 1:26 pm

Hi Corvus et al,

I've had it for a bit over two years but not sure how long the previous owners had it. I bought it privately. They did say they had kept it in quite small tanks 60l then temporarily smaller.

I'm moving soon so will have to invest in a chiller methinks. I've rehomed most of my fish but still haveloads of tanks and gear so could easily go larger.

Is stunting incurable? The fish is not quite two inches ex caudal fin...

Cheers,

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 1:41 pm

This puffer has another quirk in that it never buries itself but does lurk on the bottom sand if startled. The 50:50 honey/coral sand is two inches deep and does not seem packed when I stir it at water change.

It must be a very tough one off, this animal!

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 1:50 pm

Oh, I'll try to contact some people who can convert a beer chiller the size of a washing machine. They are seahorse experts so the chiller may be used to cool a pair of foot high pot bellied sea horses in tandem.

I'll post a pic of the ocellatus tm when there is light in the garage. Did post on this puff way back, so it will be here somewhere. Just so you know I'm not a troll lol

I can do 240 l after move once I have it settled. Good thing is mature filters and sand bed...

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 2:09 pm

Trying to upload a rubbish phone pic of animal. If I need to cut the file size, I'll do it next week...

Christie_ZXR · Post by **Christie_ZXR** » Sun Jun 24, 2012 5:16 am

Aww bless him, that's tiny! Mushroom's massive. Reckoning on 6-7"ish. He's in my hallway now, since his tank wouldn't fit anywhere else! But it doesn't seem to bother him too much. He's got playsand from homebase, which is fairly fine and soft, so he occasionally buries himself totally if he's spooked! Then this little nose pops up and a little spray of sand and you can see his eyes and his nose poking out and nothing else.

I don't really know about stunting. Mushroom was in a tiny cube, probably a foot square, possibly a bit more, when I got him. LFS had him for 2 months in that if I remember rightly. Then I had him in a too small tank for a fair while before he moved into his 4ft. I was really worried he'd stunt, but he grew like mad. Don't know if the warmer temp possibly had something to do with it. Basing that idea purely on other fish growing quicker in warmer water, so it's a bit of an unscientific guess though!

Has your little guy not got a name? Can't wait to see a piccy of him!

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Mon Jun 25, 2012 10:56 am

IMAG0152 crop2.jpg

soggydrysuit · Post by **soggydrysuit** » Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:10 am

Maybe a 3'' animal...

It's going up for bloodworm as a bribe for rubbish photo!

Have not yet thought of a decent name...

puffykid · Post by **puffykid** » Tue Jun 26, 2012 1:12 am

I really like your fugu he/she is really cute. My gsp is shy when I have my camera out too, so I was impressed with your picture because 90% of mine are just fins and blur.

As to stunting no there isn't a cure for it, because it isn't a disease but a end result of some combination between not large enough of a tank, not enough water changes, and or not enough decor as the major factors. He will still grow a bit because fish naturally continue growth throughout their life but will likely remain on the smaller side for the rest of his life.

quoting RTR's thoughts on stunting below

"Personally, I think there is a lot more to stunting than just one or two big items. Fish health and the ability to reach full genetic potential depends on a multitude of factors â€“ including the genetics, a healthy near-environment (basically water quality for fish), an appropriate environment (this includes dÃ©cor, swimming space, refuge, current, lighting), and suitable food in sufficient quantity but not in excess.

You need to know how big the fish should be (Fishbase is a reliable source for this), what sort of water and physical environment the fish lives in (TPF and the Puffer List and Ebert for this), and what its lifestyle is â€“ schooler, lurking predator, active hunter predator, whatever, whether or not it allows or even may need conspecific or perhaps dither tankmates, or none at all. Any of these can and likely will change during development for any given fish.

Tank size hits several of these points â€“ it allows for areas of current, for visually complex setups to explore, and space for swimming. Plus, it plays on PPâ€™s signature line of â€œthe answer to pollution is dilutionâ€?. With increased water volume, pollutants of whatever type will be at lower concentration than the same bioload will give in smaller quarters.

Many or most fish seem to like areas of current, many do â€œplayâ€? or exercise in the current. Hunters get some just by exploration of a complex environment. Schoolers (Auriglobus when young, Colomesus throughout their life) absolutely must have it or they will show â€œcaged animalâ€? stereotyped behavior just to work off activity normal and in effect hard-wired into the animal. Fish need exercise. All mobile animals need exercise. Koi kept in shallow ponds do not develop normal configurations. They are too long and slender. They need depth as well as length and width. Without exercise, muscle mass will not be in normal proportion to frame and internal organs. Puffers have less structured skeletons than most fish (adaptation to puffing), so IMHO they need to have whatever exercise they are willing to do to allow normal physical development. The space or volume bit has impact here as well. Pollution, whether from metabolites or hormones of general organics, suppresses normal growth and development. What levels of which are important? We do not know. We do that it varies from family to family for various pollutants over a substantial range. It is highly likely to vary from species to species within a family. In the best of all possible worlds, tanks would all be a high multiple of the length of the fish housed there. In reality, we rarely can provide that other than for the smallest fish. But we try to just as much volume as we can. We provide both current and relative calm, without having totally dead areas, in the tank, and we match the dÃ©cor to the lifestyle of the fish.

Naturally, we feed both well and wisely. We meet the fishâ€™s nutritional â€“ and for the special needs of puffers â€“ and physical food suited to the particular fish. We provide enough to allow the fish to grow normally, but not so much that the fish is obese. Obesity is as great an issue for fish as for people and dogs. Too much food, not the best food, and feeding too often, all lead to problems.

Water quality Iâ€™ll assume as a given. Un-oxidized metabolites (ammonia and/or nitrite) are never detectable, oxidized metabolites (nitrate) are as low as is practical for us to provide, but certainly below 40 ppm nitrate, better below 20 ppm, best at or below 10 ppm. Organics are kept low by large water changes at sufficiently short intervals that hobby testable water parameters are never far off from the source water used for the tank (whether tap or processed or otherwise modified). That means the water you remove should be quite close to the water you will replace it with, excepting perhaps the nitrate titer, and the organic (which we cannot measure).

IF you can provide all of this, your fish will, on the average, exceed the normal lifespan of the species in the wild, and frequently will be as large as if not larger than the wild counterparts. Anything less is stunting. Anything less will result in lower health and shorter life.

To me stunting is insufficient space, improper diet and exercise, and both chemical and physical environmental deficiencies. Any or all of those lacks can contribute. Any or all can result in a stunted fish."

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