The Puffer Forum

Hi, my name is Gemma and I'm new to puffers. I have bought, about three weeks ago, what I was told was a freshwater giant spotted puffer from a pet shop here in the UK but I now question whether he is what they say. He is constantly looking ill, has had whitespot and is now off his food. He had a black underbelly when I got him which has worsened to being completely black which I was told was stress. I have tested the water and I'm sure its fine, zero ammonia, nitrites etc.

Is it Ok for me to post a photo and ask if somebody can help me to correctly identify him please? I fear from what I've read that he may need a more brackish water.

Thanks for your help guys, Happy New Year to everybody,

Gemma

welcome to the forum!
Yes please post a picture so we can identify it for you, also look in the pufferpedia and see if you can find it. Also waht size tank is he in, how was it cycled?

Hi Rocco

Thanks so much for replying.

Here's the picture of my puffer (hope the attachment works OK).

I looked on the pufferpedia and it looks to me like a member of the fluviatilis family but I'm really not sure and would appreciate your opinion. If I'm right this concerns me as wouldn't it need a brackish tank and at the moment its freshwater?

My tank is a 120L running for about 2 months cycled with a variety of mollies, platies community tank fish. Its got an internal fluval 3+ filtration system which I realise is under filtered for a puffer but I have been doing 50% water changes every week.

Thanks again for your help.

Your welcome.
I'm not sure what kind it is, some look similar to it but none are really that close.
How big is he?

Hi Rocco

He is about 4 inches.

I was thinking Sabahensis also. Moving this to the Hospital forum. Please try your best to answer all the Qs above in red.

you definitely want to get any health conditions taken care of ASAP. Did you mean he still has whitespot or no longer has it?

To give you the short answer, he's always off his health because giant spotted puffers don't do well in FW in captivity, they need light brackish. Another victim of the LFS misinformation problem...

Sabahensis would be my guess on the species. There's just something about the shape of the face and eyes, even when their color is so dark and mottled that they don't look quite like the species photos.

Yeah the color was the only thing that threw me off.

So now that we have the ID down, what's going on with your tank?