We decided to go down to Nottingham today, to a couple of fish stores that I enjoy going to. The first store had a MBU puffer, the smallest one I've ever seen, but the poor thing was in a tank with huge cichlids, and it was only about 2" long, and he had no belly at all, and I felt so sorry for him. They were asking £50 for him and if they would have gone down to half that, I would have bought him. I just felt so sorry for him being in that tank with those cichlids, and I just don't understand how a LFS could do that. But this particular store, even though they have a good selection of fish, are notorious for putting huge fish in small tanks, they do it all the time to stingrays, and tire-track eels, and a number of other fish. The next thing that made me feel sad was the Rainbow Land crabs they had. They were in a full tank of water, and, as the name implies, they are "land" crabs. Now, I have mine in a tank with water, but Ive also got loads of land areas for them to get up on and the water isn't very deep, and I will be changing that set up in the next few months. When I lifted the lid that runs along the tanks, you could see all the RLC's up on the edge of the tank, out of the water. It just made me feel so bad. They don't seem to comprehend that some fish/crabs require different tank arrangements. But they did have a mudskipper that I've been trying to find since mine died, Periophthalmus barbarus, so I did buy from them. I asked about the MBU puffer, but they were only willing to come down by £5, and that wasn't enough for me. I really doubt that the puffer will live much longer. I don't think he's getting the right care at all, and seems very upset by those huge cichlids. As it was, the mudskipper I bought was like a head with a string for a body, and if you could see mine, you'd see a BIG difference.
After we left that shop, we stopped at another that usually has some puffer species. Today was my lucky day, they had about 8 different species of puffers, although not all of them were on sale due to the SAP's having whitespot (ich) and giving it to the other fish that are exposed to the same water. They had dwarf puffers (2 for £5.50); SAP's £14.50 each; silus' £7.50 each; Ceylons, small £9.99 and big £18.99; erythrotaenia £10.99 each; Arrowhead £20.99; Cutcutia £7.99 each; and finally a orangish coloured Congo puffer that was full grown at £34.50 each (not bad considering I paid more than £20 for my only 2" one).
So I bought the Arrowhead (suvatii), it's so cute, it's only about 2" , but so cute! I also bought one of the cutcutia to go with the one I already have, they were nice and big too. I had wanted to buy the Congo puffer, but she said she'd only had it for 2 days and it wasn't for sale yet. I gave her my phone number and asked her to phone me when it's available for sale, so she said she will phone me to tell me when it's available for sale, and give me first dibs on buying it. So I think I am going to take my brackish tank down that had my erythrotaenia's in it, and make it a new tank for the Congo I may be getting next week.
So now that we're home, I've got the baby suvattii in the tank with the Palembang, and all is well (so far) .... it's going to be feeding time soon, so that should be interesting. The cutcutia's seem to be doing okay together, I did have 4 of them in one tank before, so I should be okay with 2 of them. And what started out as a very bad day has ended on a very good note, and I am feeling happy with my new additions!
