Mbu Puffers
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 7:04 pm
Mbu Puffer
A long sad and story which I really do not enjoy relating, but they are wonderful fish...
Mine stepped up from 40 -> 75 in only a few months, then to 180 at between 2 & 3 years, and it should have been sooner. Eventually that was too small. He did permanent damage to his caudal fin that never straightened out. The first damage was done in the 75, later got worse in the 180. He really could not turn comfortably even in the large tank. It should probably have required 3-4'H x 4'D x 8'W to keep from cramping him (or on the order of 1000 gallons for the display only), and larger would have been better. He was my favorite (and my wife's) by a wide margin of all the fish I've kept, but is probably not suitable for hobbyists. They are just too big. His system was the 180 with him, a 120 veggie filter, two 40-gallon veggie filters, a 20-gallon Daphnia filter, a 20-long filter-feeding shrimp filter after the daphnia tank, plus a twin-tower W/D, two large Eheim external canisters and multiple internal Eheims, and 2- or 3- 50 gallon partials per week (alternating weeks). He was stunted, only about 18-20" standard, but with the huge caudal fins these fish have, he would have been ~26" full length with his caudal flat at which it could not do with the vertical curl at the rear & he always seemed to turn the same direction. Very friendly, very excited to see us, very much a high-personality pet. I doubt that I will ever keep another, as I cannot house one properly. I don't track my tank expenses, but I don't think his feeding was that bad, considering that he required about half the tank room just to support him & his electric bill was likely pretty high though & all those lights on his veggie filters. I did breed some albino bristlenose cats in the veggie filters then, to offset part of his food supply (trade goods). Unless you have the space, the time, and the price of luxury car to put into a fish, they are just not suited to private keeping. If I could and was willing to do it over, I'd devote the entire tank room to the one fish. It would house only the single tank, Monaco style, custom built in place, with customed filters and automated changes. That was what I had originally planed for the space, but reality intervened, along with college for the kids.
~RTR
A long sad and story which I really do not enjoy relating, but they are wonderful fish...
Mine stepped up from 40 -> 75 in only a few months, then to 180 at between 2 & 3 years, and it should have been sooner. Eventually that was too small. He did permanent damage to his caudal fin that never straightened out. The first damage was done in the 75, later got worse in the 180. He really could not turn comfortably even in the large tank. It should probably have required 3-4'H x 4'D x 8'W to keep from cramping him (or on the order of 1000 gallons for the display only), and larger would have been better. He was my favorite (and my wife's) by a wide margin of all the fish I've kept, but is probably not suitable for hobbyists. They are just too big. His system was the 180 with him, a 120 veggie filter, two 40-gallon veggie filters, a 20-gallon Daphnia filter, a 20-long filter-feeding shrimp filter after the daphnia tank, plus a twin-tower W/D, two large Eheim external canisters and multiple internal Eheims, and 2- or 3- 50 gallon partials per week (alternating weeks). He was stunted, only about 18-20" standard, but with the huge caudal fins these fish have, he would have been ~26" full length with his caudal flat at which it could not do with the vertical curl at the rear & he always seemed to turn the same direction. Very friendly, very excited to see us, very much a high-personality pet. I doubt that I will ever keep another, as I cannot house one properly. I don't track my tank expenses, but I don't think his feeding was that bad, considering that he required about half the tank room just to support him & his electric bill was likely pretty high though & all those lights on his veggie filters. I did breed some albino bristlenose cats in the veggie filters then, to offset part of his food supply (trade goods). Unless you have the space, the time, and the price of luxury car to put into a fish, they are just not suited to private keeping. If I could and was willing to do it over, I'd devote the entire tank room to the one fish. It would house only the single tank, Monaco style, custom built in place, with customed filters and automated changes. That was what I had originally planed for the space, but reality intervened, along with college for the kids.
~RTR