The Puffer Forum

I know there is still not much information about keeping this puffer.
I've came across 3 of these puffers and the all went to people of the dutch puffer forum. One of the puffers, Lucky I've kept for myself.
Surely I want tot take the best of care of this little puffer.

So thats why I started this information search on this puffer. I've read a lot of topics here, but unfortunately some of them ended without a clue of what happened to the puffer.

So I was thinking maybe we could keep a record of the living conditions of this puffer.

Mine is with 2 endler guppies in a 30 gallon tank. With a salinity of 1.003. I started wit a temp of 23C, but the puffer didn't seem to like it. So I went looking on google earth, try fishbase to see what the exact location is where this puffer been find and then I've looked up the water temperature. I found out that temperature is quite high. This puffer is found also in the Sulawesi lakes. Water temperature is about 25-28 C (mid 80F)
At the moment I upgraded the temerature to 27C and he's much more active and seems a lot happier.

So please tell me your living conditions of this beautiful puffer

Hello!

I also have two of these puffers. I have only had them for about a month and a half but they seem to have settled in well! They live in a Rio 125 tank which I have been gradually turning brackish (I had originally settled on getting some SAP's until i fell in love with these little guys!). They were in slightly brackish conditions in the LFS but with the advice from the guy in the shop and all the forum threads on here, I have been adding salt slowly every week with their water changes. About 5g of salt per litre

I also have them heated at 25 C and they seem very happy and are always buzzing around their tank looking for food! Both have bright white bellies and dark brown bodies

I was also wondering if anyone knows if there is any way of telling males from females in this species? I only ask as both of my puffs have their red line along their side, but when i feed them or if they are hunting one of them gets a bright yellow patch across his head and a very dark line alone his side, and the other does not. I was wondering if the one with the dark stripe and yellow head is a male and the other is female perhaps?

Here are some photos of my puffs, they are not great photos as you can't see the colours very well unfortunatly:



You can kind of make out the yellow patch on his head:


I also found there is a lack of info on the internet about these little guys so if anyone knows where I can find anything out about them please let me know

Cheers!

Nice pictures!!
I like there dark back and light head. On what salinity are yours now? And where are you taking them?

I'm a bit in doubt keeping him on 1.003 or try to raise the salinity.
Mine likes hanging out in a plant, with a swim now or than. Not so active as my ceylon. But I only have him for about 2 weeks now, so hope he loses up a little bit.




He's still a bit camera shy

Hello!

He's a cute puffer! I really like this species

Im not sure exactly what salinity my tank is at the moment as I don't have a tester at home. But I am taking a sample of water to my LFS this weekend to find out the salinity, so I will post it on here when I find out what it is. Im also not sure what salinity level to take them too, they seem pretty happy and active at the moment so I might play it by ear and start adjusting it more if they start to change behaviour, or if we find any more information about them!

My puffers are very camera shy also, if I sit by the tank on my own they will come over and beg for food, but as soon as I get a camera they hide in their plants!

Any more erythrotaenia owners?

I've been reading a lot on the internet about the natural habitat of this puffer. Here some which I found very interesting. Its a paper about fishes from the Fly river in Papua New Guinea

Tetraodon erythrotaenia, known from the Lower
Fly and from freshwater in the Lorentz, belongs to
a group of puffers typically inhabiting rivers above
the limit of tidal influence, hence it probably occurs
in the Middle Fly and possibly in the Upper Fly.

Tetraodon erythrotaenia Bleeker, 1853
USNM 217319, Fly 75-32, 5: 21.0-53.5 mm.

FLY 75-32.—Outer entrance of Toro Pass at W
end of Parama Island, and small mangrove-lined
tributary of Guiavi Creek on mainland opposite W
end of Parama Island, 9°01.2'S, 143°21.6'E. 15 December.
Water in Toro Pass strongly salty, in mangrove
creek sampled slightly brackish or fresh. Gill
nets, rotenone.

Daytime water temperature ranged from 21.7° C in
the highest mountain streams sampled, at 800 m
elevation, to 31.7° C in lakes and lowland tributaries
of the Middle Fly. Fly mainstream temperature ranged
from 25.0° C to 30.6° C.

Middle Fly waters are relatively clear and blackish.
There are numerous lagoons, extensive swamps, and shallow,
dendritic lakes, the shores or margins of which are almost
invariably densely vegetated with aquatic and semiaquatic
higher plants.

The Lower Fly, its turbidity greatly increased by the
muddy Strickland water, flows nearly 400 km southeastward
into the Gulf of Papua.

Aquatic vegetation in the upper half of the Lower Fly mainstream resembles that of the Middle Fly, but for most of the last 200 km of the Fly aquatic plants are not a significant feature of fish habitats. Long stretches of the shore are littered with uprooted palms and other trees displaced by tidal bores that regularly affect the lowermost 200 km of the Fly. Tidally induced fluctuations in river level, an important factor in fish ecology, are felt only up to 250 km from the mouth and are thus confined to the Lower Fly.

An Ichthyological Survey of the Fly River in Papua New Guinea with Descriptions of New Species
Tyson R. Roberts

The web addresses http://www.kogelforum.lode.biz

Just another picture of Lucky: