Carinotetraodon irrubesco

[pufferfreak]

90 liters in gallons?

[Jase]

~24 gal

[pufferfreak]

oh,thanks. that does seem small.

[scarletchopper]

I know, but I was sold them as a variant of dwarf puffers, and didn't realise they would get much bigger.

I understand they will get to about 2" each, but they are less than 1/2" each at the moment, which is why I guess there have been no problems. I'm sat here and all 6 are looking for food at the moment, but no fighting etc.

What size (in litres) tank would I need for these 6 full grown? Both ideal and minimum?

Cheersm
Andy

[pufferfreak]

I dont know as you can tell, lol, but can you post a full tank shot?

[Troender]

I wouldn't have kept 6 fully grown irrubescos together whatever tank size (except perhaps a very, very large one). Irrubescos can have very variable temperament. I quote from the PufferPedia: "Personality/Temperament: Very mixed. Some individuals can be very aggressive, others can be very timid. Territorial."

With irrubescos you never know how they will react, when keeping a pair. Some will go very nicely together, some will just kill his/her husband/wife (usually the husband kills his wife). Even with pairs that go along very well, you need to keep an eye on them, because they can turn on each other at any time (I know someone who has experienced this first hand). 6 of them together will be trouble. They are territorial, and would most probably fight each other when they reach adulthood. When you see many of them together in the shop, I think there's some common agreement between the fishes: "We are so many at all too small space. If we start fighting now, all of us will end up dead or very injured. Let's wait until we have better room to fight about."

[scarletchopper]

Hi, here is the setup I've got going at the moment. The bioload doesn't seem to be a problem on the internal filter, but I had looked at changing to an external.



I'm keen to get a feel if there's a minimum size tank needed (bearing in mind I seem to have been quite lucky in that they don't seem to want to fight), to see if it's practical to upgrade or if I need to find new homes for some. I do probably have rose tinted glasses on because they seem to be cohabiting very happily at the moment, but any advice is really welcome!

Thanks,
Andy

[jimi]

for a new tank with them you would want 50 pluse at least

[scarletchopper]

50g Imperial or US?

Cheers,
Andy

[jimi]

lol sorry i forgot about the whole American's specialness ( meaning inches gallons feet and so on) i meant it in us but i couldn't imagine there being to much of a difference

[pufferfreak]

Yeah, and then make it an underwater forest with lots of hiding places.

[jimi]

all puffers sould have this though even if there alone

[scarletchopper]

Lol the last time I was in the US and had a conversation about gas prices and used imperial gallons for the uk it caused offence, then we converted to US gallons and people fell off their chairs!

But it's only a 16% difference, so if I'm overstocked on the space it's going to make rod all difference.

Would a 400l be overkill?

Cheers,
Andy

[jimi]

well i got to say at over 100 gallons us when they need 20 for swimming and probaly an additional 10 for biolad they would be very happy but i fear this might be a bit boring of course you could experement wiht tank mates just you sould probaly stick to catfish that wont eat them like corys plecos maybe a whip tail ( if you do try this keep an eye on things

[scarletchopper]

Thanks Jimi,

The bit where I am getting confused is whether that is per fish etc.

I make 20g (us) + 10g (us) to be 114l, which isn't that far off of what I have at the moment (hence my persistent questioning).

If they quadruple in size then I could see a 400l being appropriate (they are the best value on ebay), but at the moment they seem to be herding more than being territorial.

Cheers,
Andy