Yo Puffer People!

[Rhab]

I'm a longtime hobbyist but have never kept puffers before. Too many waterchanges for my taste I guess. Anyway I have just had a 4" Tetraodon suvattii left in a basket on my front step. Luckily I had a planted 90gallon tank, well cycled sitting around with nothing inside but the original cycle fish, I had no set plan for the tank I was mostly focused on gardening and enjoying the possibilities that a big ready to go tank represents.

Now I have a medium large tank with one small puffer and a herd of scared danios. The water quality test`s nicely, ph is a touch high at 7.5 ish but thats normal round here. Now heres the problem. I would prefer to start up a 30gal and move this guy in in due course (lord knows extra tanks are not my problem), but I can`t as the old lady has issued a stern "that enough aquariums, normal people don`t have that many" edict.

So I trade this fellow, pawn him at the LFS OR set up some kind of puffer community tank?

I guess what I am asking is: What would you do?

Regards,

Rhab

PS: He seems to be swimming up and down a lot for a sedentary ambush predator, is he having trouble acclimating? The tank is a little hot at 29C, thats out of my control sadly a very old, very chilly lady lives on floor down me and keeps the heat cranked.

[sevenyearnight]

Higher pH is fine, a very low pH would be of concern.
They glass dance when stressed, he's had a lot of changes.
Did someone seriously leave him on your doorstep?
There are no community puffers, they are all predators and species set up is recommended.
If you genuinely do not feel like you can commit to 50% weekly water changes, then a puffer is not for you. They are very sensitive and prone to illness if not kept in pristine water conditions.
0 ammonia and nitrite, nitrate under 20, many of us like to keep nitrate below 10 though, to be on the safe side.

[Rhab]

An acquaintance just realized that he just purchased a badmofo and it was messing up his badly thought out oddball pred tank. Long story short I got a surprise guest.

I don't actually mind water changes, so much as I sometimes travel for work. Normally only a two weeks at time but occasionally more. The wife ain't much for babysitting if you know what I mean In particular she thinks Orc (as I call him) is gross and looks like a "Pig, Dog, Fish" or PDF (as she calls him) so I'm not holding out hope that she starts now.

Filtration in the tank is good:

1 X canister filter rated - 264 GAL/h (this thing is a machine, great piece of gear)

2 X Internal filter - 172 GAL/h

0/0/20 is easy enough normally. Just checked and am only slightly above tapwater basline currently. I'm blessed with outstanding tap water.

I travel less and less, and I suppose I could buy a buddy of mind a few beers to do the odd change. So lets say sure I can keep clean water. And I get that a puffer community tank is the ultimate noob notion.

But: Can I keep a pair? I know that they have been bred in the past and that the fry are super hard to raise. But how challenging is it to keep them from murdering each other? The tank doesn't have a clean line in it, Its heavily planted lots of driftwood, heavy growths of moss, in short lots of places to set up territory's.

An critically, are they any fun? I have plenty of cool looking catfish that I only see with a red light, I don't need a puffer who is the same way.

Speaking of red lights, after my first post I turned off the lights and turned on a red filtered flashlight which I set on top of the tank. Orc is calmly swimming about now, seems to have settled. Considering that he was sharing space with a 20" knife this morning I should think that hes enjoying his freedom.

I will say that I like him more all the time.

Thanks for your reply.

[sevenyearnight]

Yeah they are very odd looking.
It's virtually impossible to keep them from murdering each other, I would personally never attempt something like that.
They differ puffer to puffer as far as activity levels.
That is a super aggresive species, so if that is your dish, then Orc is your fish.

[Pufferpunk]

I apologize that our Library isn't accessible at the moment. There are 3 great articles on this puffer species in there. You have a top predatory piscavore killing machine. Expect ALL his tank mates to be eventual food. They are one of my favorite puffers--looking more like a dog then a puffer. Gottta love that upturned pouty snout!

BTW, I do the same amount of WC on all my tanks, with or without puffers in them. Your best bet for forgoing weekly water changes when you're out of town, is to seriously over-house your fish.

[Rhab]

Makes sense, he is over housed right now, cycle fish are out he has a 90 Gal to himself right now. Would a population of Filter Shrimp survive? Possibly Atya gabonensis or Atyopsis moluccensis? I'm a bit worried he is back to "wall walking", the tank is still hot from yesterday. Its currently 29-30C and will stay like that for another day I think. Will a couple degrees kill him?

Also you are Pufferpunk! I have read many of your WWM replies, you're a celebrity! At least to fish keepers of the nerd variety such as myself.

[sevenyearnight]

What are your other water parameters?

[Pufferpunk]

It's cool that my period at WWM is still documented. 30g is the perfect size for this fish. Is there much cover in the 90g? Does he have anywhere to hide? they are burrowers by nature--perhaps there is no sand substrate for him?

[Rhab]

Tons of places to hide. Driftwood, moss, and a variety of hardy plants. Its not sand per say but a thin gravel planted tank substrate. I've known burrowing fish to get into it in the past but perhaps his skin is two thin...

In his old tank he just sat on the bottom of the tank and did his best to look like a mossy rock. Now he's going up and down like crazy. I'm worried that he took a gulp of air when buddy netted him. I remember hearing somewhere that that could be fatal.

Normal water parameters are.

````````````````````````````````````units````````` ``max```````min``````average
Alkalinity```````````````````````mg/L```````````87.8``````80.8 `````85.2
Conductivity``````````````````mhos/cm`````398```````280```````307
Hardness ( as CaCO3 )``mg/L```````````125```````116```````122
pH```````````````````````````````````````````````` ``7.9```````7.4`````````7.7
Total Solids```````````````````mg/L```````````198```````168```````180

Tank tests out 0/0/~10

[Pufferpunk]

My guess is, he wants a place to bury himself. How about a bowl of sand?

[Rhab]

Good idea, I will give it a try.

[RTR]

Like PP, for my tanks 50% partials are standard, whatever the fish. As I breed Rainbowfish and Cichlids, water quality a;ways needs to be high.

[Rhab]

I guess, It seems to me I have kept some healthy tanks that tested well with weekly 20-30% changes, or every other week 40% changes. For me a 50% change is something I do if I have been on the road for tree weeks. Plants, good filtration, regular water changes and critically a healthy load is the key to success. Mind you I favor 90 Gallon tanks which allow some room for error over say a 30G.

[RTR]

It is not possible for water quality to be too high, or too stable. Both of those things contribute to the health and lifespan of captive fish. Even puffers, which in the wild can and do move freely between wider differences in water parameters than most fish, increase longevity in more stable tanks. I do attribute the long lives of most of my fish to both of those things, plus as much freedom from stress as I can arrange.

[Rhab]

Fair enough, perhaps I kept snakeheads too long and learned to avoid large changes with those fish.

Anyhow I found that he has settled down a fair bit and today ate a large worm today, the first real food he has taken so far. I purchased 15lbs of Seachem Flourite Black Sand, washed it as well as I could and cleared out the corner of the tank that he seems to prefer and carefully scooped it into the corner. He now has a little mountain of sand that hes sitting on. Tank got a little cloudy but it is clearing quickly.

On another note what a violent eater this cat is! I haven't felt this nervous shooing a fish out of the way in years. That bite could really take a chunk out of a guy.

I'm really curious to read those articles in the library. When do you expect it to be back up?

Regards,

Rhab