The Puffer Forum

hi guys, yesterday i brought my first puffer, i cant identify it, the guy at the shop called it a fresh water banded puffer, but cant find any info on it, so either the guy gave me the wrong name or im looking the wrong places
heres a pic of my puffer, by anychance could somebody id it for me and give me the scientific name aswell as a common name so i can find proper care info for it.

thanks for your help in advance, the pics arent too good but hes pretty quick and lively so he always manages to sneak out of the shot or ruin it.
ill upload a video of him and post the link soon if they dont help

sorry for the double post
heres a video of him
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2Syw55l9gs

If he is a Banded Puffer then he's Brakish water not Freshwater mate
ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Brackish/C_Psittacus/

To be honest he doesn't really look like a banded puffer to me, I saw a few babies in my lfs and their bodies where of a different shape, more rounded. Also they didn't have those white bloches/spots.

I might be wrong, wait for some of the other guys to get on here, they're much more experenced with identifying puffers than I am

What ever he is he's a beautiful little puffer, you must be well pleased

yeah hes awesome,
oh i hope he isnt a brackish puffer, easily taken care of, but he's been kept in fresh water for around 4 weeks the fish shop guy reckons

i found pages on that banded puffer i just assumed that the guy gave me an incorrect name because thats the only info i could find, and the guy at the shop said he was definatly freshwater. so either he isnt a banded puffer or he is and the bloke was wrong about it being a freshwater puffer

He is a Chelonodon patoca/Milk-spotted puffer. A Marine fish imported from Sri Lanka. Although it is a marine fish, it does astonishly well in FW, even better than most BW fish. Burries itself in sand. Severe fin-biter of tank mates.

Pufferpunk wrote:He is a Chelonodon patoca/Milk-spotted puffer. A Marine fish imported from Sri Lanka. Although it is a marine fish, it does astonishly well in FW, even better than most BW fish. Burries itself in sand. Severe fin-biter of tank mates.

You know it was only tonight that I was watching these puffers on Youtube

Wow how lucky is that, that he can survive in FW

thanks heaps for that, i cant find much info on these guys, does any one have a link

splitadams wrote:thanks heaps for that, i cant find much info on these guys, does any one have a link

ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Marine/Chelonodon+patoca/

so what would one recommend? ive read up a bunch of info about it and apparently this puffer is found in fresh, brackish and marine, i'm thinking maybe switching the tank to brackish as a half way, anybody beleive different or have a better idea? wouldnt want little ziggy to suffer any

splitadams wrote:so what would one recommend? ive read up a bunch of info about it and apparently this puffer is found in fresh, brackish and marine, i'm thinking maybe switching the tank to brackish as a half way, anybody beleive different or have a better idea? wouldnt want little ziggy to suffer any

From what PufferPunk said I'd keep Ziggy in freshwater

What a cute puffer!

Not necessarily. that was from Dr Ebert's book. It does well in FW but is a marine puffer.

iver read a bunch about him now, apparently even though he is a marine fish they are commonly found in brackish and fresh waters and can live his entire life healthy in brackish water between 1.005-1.015, was told to rise the salinity .002 per week as to not kill off bacterias in my tank, with rock-salt or marine salt, and replace my substrate with a sand or a crushed coral and some live plants.
sound right?

oh and apparently they do well in fresh water untill they start getting older, then it can cause health problems

thanks pufferpunk with out the help i woulda never found out what it was

I'd go with sand, as they like to burrow.

Pufferpunk wrote:I'd go with sand, as they like to burrow.

yeah thats what i was thinking