A. modestus or Xenopterus

age puff · Post by **age puff** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:01 pm

I 've read the posts about this topic already but i'm still not sure about this. The guy at my LFS was selling a "green puffer". He was keeping it in brackish water. I bought it and put it in a 10 gal. tank (it's about 2 inches right now) and added salt. If this fish is really a. modestus, and should be kept in freshwater, what will happen to it? How long will it take to for it to show symptoms? I'm going to try and and get some pics of it with my mom's digital camera.

Post by **Myaj** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:36 pm

Look at the pictures at http://www.pufferlist.com to identify your puffer. Usually the "green puffers" are Green Spotted Puffers, every time I've seen Modestus they've been labeled as "Bronze Puffer".

age puff · Post by **age puff** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:46 pm

pufferlist dosent show xenopterus

age puff · Post by **age puff** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 11:03 pm

[/img]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f190/ ... is a pic

age puff · Post by **age puff** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 11:04 pm

wait, that didnt work

age puff · Post by **age puff** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 11:15 pm

sorry my pic is so big.

Phaedrus · Post by **Phaedrus** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:27 am

It sure looks like a modestus: http://www.pufferlist.com/puffer/freshpuff.php?puffid=0

What kind of salt did you put in there, and how much?
Is the tank cycled?
Is it the only fish in there?
What kind of filter do you have?

A 10 gallon is a little small, but if it's heavily planted and you have good filtration and are careful about feedings and maintenance it should be alright.

Pay attention to the info on the pufferlist page about proper food. He'll need some snails to keep his teeth from overgrowing.

PS: If you want, you can use this edited picture instead of the huge one. :p

The URL: http://members.shaw.ca/jasonznack/fish/modestus.jpg

PPS: Nice healthy looking fish BTW

Post by **Pufferpunk** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:33 am

Definately modestus. FW puffer. Mine lives in a 40g tank & is 4".

Post by **RTR** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:29 am

And the tooth warning is valid - these fish do have fast growing teeth.

age puff · Post by **age puff** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:31 pm

I'm using freshwater aquarium salt and there is a power filter rated for 15 gallons. He is the only fish in there.

Thanks for the edit x0rtrunks

How small do the snails have to be?

age puff · Post by **age puff** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 6:01 pm

never mind the snail size, i put some in his tanks and he tore them up before they hit the bottom.

Phaedrus · Post by **Phaedrus** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 6:28 pm

Since it is a fresh water puff you can stop using the aquarium salt.

Rule of thumb: Snails should be about the size of the puffers eye.

age puff · Post by **age puff** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:31 pm

the guy at the pet shop said that there are no truly freshwater puffers and that they all edventually go out to sea. Is this true?

Post by **Pufferpunk** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:03 pm

LOL, mine said the same thing. There are probably more FW puffers than SW ones.

Post by **RTR** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:55 pm

In a word, age puff, NO! Your guy at the pet show is proudly broadcasting his ignorance. But that is not rare in LFS employees or even owners, there are a lot of fish in the world and nobody can know them all.

FW puffers are second division fish, meaning that the family arose in salt water and only later some members adapted to FW and gave rise to new species there. Second division fish are as a group more adaptable than primary division fish.

Actually PP, there are not many purely FW species of puffer. The purely SW species far outnumber them. I'd suspect that the BW to SW species may even outnumber the pure FW species. But i would not bet the farm on any of that - it has been a while since I looked up any review articles*.

*Hmm. The next rainy or nasty day after the end of next week I'll try to do a quick scan of what I have in-house.

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A. modestus or Xenopterus

A. modestus or Xenopterus