New Fahaka!

[Reaperpilot2014]

Hi all! I've had puffers for 9 years now, and can't sleep because I have my first Fahaka puffer arriving in the morning! He's 2" at the moment and will be in a 150g by himself. I have read posts on the forum for quite awhile now and am looking to both learn from and contribute to the forum in any way possible. Puffers are my absolute favorite fish and besides the 3 South American Puffers I have now, and the Fahaka coming in the morning, I have raised figure 8s, an avocado, GSPs, and just recently lost my 4 year old orange Congo puffer to a tragic accident. I watched a friends Mbu for 2 months if that counts. Happy to be a part of the puffer forum and look forward to meeting you all!
-Reaperpilot2014

[puffykid]

Hiya! wow you have way more experience then me haha. welcome to the forum! Grats on the fahaka hope your ready to feed him/her since they are beasts!

[Reaperpilot2014]

Hey, thanks for the heads up.

I absolutely love him. He is now in a cycled 150 gallon aquarium by himself, and I have one of those mini freezers full of shrimp and cockles. It's always stocked for my puffers. Since he is only 2 inches right now, I will be feeding him ramshorn snails from my breeder tank, with an occasional crayfish treat.

I feel like such a moron. I bought the wrong sand for his tank, and have had some problems with that, but am looking forward to my new water puppy.

[puffykid]

You already taught me something cause I didn't know what a cockle was lol.

Water puppy is right! I just got a congo myself and he is such a good beggar (he busts out his cute antics)

Out of curiosity what kind of sand did you get him?

[Reaperpilot2014]

I have used Tahitian Moon (black volcanic) sand, and aragonite in the past, but wanted to do my own color combination this time, so used some 20 lb bags of Petco "Aquarium Sand". Although I'm not positive it is the cause, my water ph has gone up drastically, and it has stuck to my Fahaka's mucous membrane. It looks like it is falling off slowly though, so I'm guessing I shouldn't be concerned. Anyway, it is definitely not the quality of sand I was expecting for the price.

I also had a congo puffer. They really are awesome fish, but I found they get expensive to feed since they will mostly only eat live fish, and ignore the snails and crayfish I stick in there. He had quite the accident when my 4-year old thought he would dump an entire bottle of dish soap in there "so the fishy could have bubbles". You can imagine where that went. Just out of curiosity, what color variety were you able to get of your congo?

[puffykid]

Did a quick search on petco for aquarium sand and I wonder how its suppose to help clean and break down waste =.=
unless they mean the good bacteria that will grow on the surface? That's weak that you got cheated out of money..

I wish you would have found this forum sooner cause the library section has a very helpful article on getting congo's and other picky eaters to take dead food
= [
Also that's a sad way to lose a puffer but there really wasn't much you could do on that 1. My congo is a light orange color here's a picture http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/photo1zsq.jpg/

I've been wanting to try what the owner of the forum and another member were discussing about getting congos to change color by using tahitian moon sand and a red gravel color actually. I might be able to convince him to change to red, cause his belly has a red color to it and I believe that is his natural shade, but I am rather nooby at congos so idk if thats how it works.

[Reaperpilot2014]

I wish I had found this forum earlier as well!

Your Congo looks great!

My Congo was a very bright orange (same color as an orange lol), but his belly was the same color, and he never really changed, despite my using Tahitian moon and red sand. I have heard of others changing their colors quite drastically, so it would probably be worth a shot. I'm surprised how much my Fahaka changes color, especially his eyes.