Fahaka enviroment

[Toomz85]

Hey guys I'm new to keeping fuffers and needed some advice

I have a fahaka that iv had for about 2 months now I have a couple of your normal run of the mills plants and drift wood ect but I'm trying to find out what plants are ACTUALLY in their enviroment as I have to hunt anything like this down as I'm in the uk any only have small towns around me and no majour shops any advice would be great

[RVS]

Anubias plants are those that we find one african rivers and lakes, their roots get sick in the rocks or wood, so fish can't remove them...

Check this Wikki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anubias

[Toomz85]

chers thank you so much for the help!!

[RTR]

In the wild, Anubias are commonly only submerse in the flood season, otherwise they are emerse, generally along rapids or waterfalls where they get spray bur are emerse. They are useful in tanks, but not particularly Fahaka biotope and are quite slow-growing submerse.

Fahakas are fairly widespread geographically in several river systems.

[Toomz85]

Thanks RTR
it there anythin you would suggest yourself I'd rather not just chuck any old plants in his tank??

[dwdrummer415]

I just set up my 120 gallon for my fahaka, and I put a bunch of plants in there. I spent around 75 dollars in live plants... the tank looked so awesome and "natural" but my fahaka, I don't know if this is true for the whole species, eats or nips off the plant leaves VERY often... I thought maybe because of snails, but this tank is fairly new and there are no snails in it... I did put some moss in there which he will lay on from time to time, but be careful spending money on plants because I feel as though my puffer does not like the plants or he just likes to watch me waste money lol. I would instead try different mosses or like they suggested Anubias, my Anubias plants are still in contact but he does occasionally nip the leaves off. Which stinks because from my understanding, anubias takes some time to grow.

[RVS]

Puffers bite things when they´re boded... i´ve seen my GSP biting stones, wood, plants... just for nothing ñ_ñ...

All moss species are simply ignored by almost all the puffers, so, its a plant that puffers tolerate, but is not common on Fahaka biotope.

[xrayjeeper83]

RTR has made the point before that Snails crawl on plants, so puffers tend to see plants as a food source and do tear them up.

Most Fahaka's will rearrange their tank to how they want it to look

[RTR]

Both Fahakas and T. mbu are hard on plants IME. I make no effort to do biotope plantings. For 120s and 180s I use basically submerse Crinums, and have them established before the fish go into the tanks. They will live indefinitely and will reproduce vegetatively over time, but the mature giant puffers can and do bit the leaves with some regularity, and can bite off large Crinums if they don't like their position.

Aquascaping for such fish is a matter of compromise. Part my plan, part what the fish will accept. It is their tank, so if they repeatedly refuse to allow a Crinum clump in one corner or the other, I forget it.

Both the giants will sleep under the floating Crinum leaves and that cover seems to make the fish less skittish. The Crinum roots will completely blanket the bottom of the tank fairly quickly, so they are all but impossible to up-root. Offsets can be removed before they are fully grown but after they develop some roots. As the Crinum plants are hungry, they do help a bit with nutrient control in the tanks. Like Giant Val, the leaves can reach 6-8 feet long, but they are much harder to uproot that the Val.

HTH