6" Fahaka

[impalass]

Brought home my first Puffer Friday, he's a healthy trade in from my LFS. They put him in with a large Asian Arowana and he immediately attacked it, that settles the tankmate question, lol.
He ate some raw shelled shrimp Monday and his s#!te is black, I've added Vita Chem, and will try some Sea Food Melody tonight. Ordered some home raised Ramshorn Snails and will be picking up some mussels, clams, and crab legs.
His new home is a 144g Half Circle, 59"Lx29"Dx29"H with an Eheim 2260 canister filter. I could home him in my 175g Bow Front, 72"Lx 30"Hx 24"D at the centre, bowing back to 18" at the ends, but after reading about depth being very important, I don't know which tank would be better for him long term ?
Currently I have a Hagen 401 power head in his tank, would a 801 be more suitable ?
Are air bubbles a concern with Puffers ? I use Rena Air pumps on my tanks for extra oxygen.
One more thing I'm not clear on, should a 6" Fahaka be fed daily or every second day ?
All comments and suggestions are welcome and thanks in advance.

Regards, Mark

[sw10mm]

Mines about 7-8 inches he's fed 6 days a week sometimes twice a day (two smaller meals) and is doing great.! Everyone has they're own way to feed and as long as yours isn't too skinny or too fat your doing it right, just make sure you have verity

[impalass]

He's not picky so far, aside from the raw shrimp he goes for anything out of the Seafood Medley bag, and I picked up some fresh live mussels yesterday, (they're in the freezer). Shopping continues for more good crunchy eats !

[Pufferpunk]

My 12" fella eats 2x/week.

[sw10mm]

Aare the two meals a week a lot at once?

[Pufferpunk]

He's pretty full. It more replicates their wild appetite.

[sw10mm]

I guess I don't know that much but I just cant see a fahaka only eating twice a week in the wild, to me I can't see wild fahakas getting big and stong only eating twice a week in the wild I see them as eating what ever they can when they can

[bertie 83]

When small they will constantly pick at small stuff, so we feed small fahaka a about 6x per week. As they grow into large clumsy hunter predators who will like to have huge meals which they will not alway catch we reduce its feedings. Of course you can mix it up a bit allowing them a couple of small tit-bits here and there, it's all about balance, not just for the fish but for the tank also. I cannot imagine the amount of tank filtration and husbandry required if we fed these large fish good daily meals, it would be horrific and would likely shorten their lives drastically. The advice here is tried and tested, sometimes it seems bizarre or confusing ( like a fahaka not constantly gorging in the wild) but it works. It may sound like I am being arsey but that's not how I want this to come across,

[RTR]

Very few fish reproduce 365 days per year in the wild. In the wild there are seasons of plenty and seasons of hunger. Fish tend to reproduce just as the season of plenty stats building. Hunter-predators tend to have territories. Those are hunting grounds sufficient (in theory) to support a batch of fry if the male is the spawn guardian. That is the commonest case and there are many variations on that theme. Mortality rates in the wild are quite high. Think about it in a multi-generational scale: If one fish pair (male and female) produce one male and one female which lives to reproduce in kind, those fish have held theior place in the evolutionary tree. If the have more than one of each gender survive, they have enlarged their genes' share of the species pool.

Also, targeted foods do change in scale as the fish grows and matures. Young fish need small prey. My T. mbu's tank system became a huge snail generator - initially the multiple veggie filters I used were snail factories. As the show fish grew, snails which migrated in from the veggie filter to the display tank were allowed to survive to a size where they could breed themselves in the display. So the display tank itself beame a generator of snails. I had literally hundreds of gallons of water producing snails I could select at just exactly the need size for small fish, because the single predator was not interested in anything less a 3/4" snail, finally not even those. For me it was great- snail breeding was built into the system. Young critters tend to do better with smaller meals of smaller foods. Adults/sexually mature fish tend to do quite well on fewer meals but larger ones. Mature predators especially tend to gorge and rest, then hunt again after the passage of time. Growing fry need more but smaller meals of smaller food items. If nothing else, it keeps parents and offspring from competing for the same food items.

HTH

[sw10mm]

Makes sense too as they get older they slow in growth mine is at that teenage boy stage where he eats everything and grows like a weed., hey rtr do you have a link or info in your veggie filter?

[Pufferpunk]

Look in our Library. All RTR's articles are in there.

[RTR]

I am a nut on veggie filters. They of course eat tank space, but also generate edible snails so that when I am stocked with puffers I have lots of food on hand at all times. But I am not mainstream on those. All my undergravel filters are over-engineered reverse flow (= OERFUG). ATM all are FW, but I have run a number of light BW for long-term F-8s. I have done a smaller number of marine OERFUGs as algae bed filters, but they are a bit higher upkeep. Those a good job on the water quality, but definitely impact both the utility bills and upkeep time demand as well. Operating costs on those are at reef tank levels and most folks consider that excessive. I do tend to agree with them. For SW tanks FOWLR (fish-only with live rock) + skimmer + 24/7 lighted macroalgae refugium is my preferred technique. There up-front investment is a bit higher, but upkeep is easy and lower cost and upkeep time than a reef.

INHO & IME, long-term operating cost are key. None of my fish tanks are short-term. I expect puffers (other than Carinotetraodon) to live at least ten and up to or above 20 years, so roughly comparable to substrate-spawning and mouth-brooding Cichlids. I don't do community or short-term fish tanks. The things I like I plan to have around for some time, so set tank systems for them to live in indefinitely. I have not always done so, but the older I get, the easier my tank-keeping gets, and longer my fish live. As I started young, I've been doing this for a long time now (over 60 years). I have gotten lazier with age - I am willing to take more time and effort in set-up to ensure low and preferably easy upkeep time for the life of the systems.