The Puffer Forum

Well, my first trip to the Practial Fishkeeping forum for a while and one of the moderators is advising people that Fig8 Puffers are pure fresh water fish. Yes im aware that they live in both fresh and brackish envionments, but telling people they ar pure freshwater is just silly.

This is just one of those things that not only will confuse people but no doubt lead to Fig8 Puffers getting dropped in freshwater tanks after the stores having them in Brackish and vice versa.

RTR's study of F8's would be handy right now. They make some valid points but it still doesnt change the fact that they do better in low end brackish.

Decided to reply to the thread.

At first I believed them to be pure freshwater after reading this, http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/other ... puffer.htm
But of course I know better now

taureandragon76 wrote:At first I believed them to be pure freshwater after reading this, http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/other ... puffer.htm
But of course I know better now

that's probably why their f8 puffers live only 5 years.

I can't remember where I saw the article but some guy has done vast experiments with F8's in different conditions and he found that if kept in brackish water he has some that lived to be 18 years old, which would tell anyone with common sense that brackish is what is best for them

That probably was here. That was RTR who did the experiments.

Too bad he never wrote up that study.

BTW who is RTR? Keep hearing that name pop up now and then. I can't believe he never did a write up on that study cause it was done over a course of many years was it not? Would have made an awesome article and something you could shove in someones face who says "oh ya F8's will do just fine in freshwater"

Robert T Ricketts is a research scientist & lecturer that has been keeping puffers for over 50 years. His F8 study lasted a decade. He was a mentor here for a very long time (followed me here from the origional TPF started about 10 years ago). He has some health problems & doesn't post here any more. We all wish him the best!

If you're interested, you can do a search here for his posts & there is a link to many of his articles in the Links forum.

Thank you for the info I will check out some of his stuff