The Puffer Forum

Hello everyone, first post!
I am going to purchase this puffer

but I'm not 100% sure if its a hairy puffer....There's no hair!
Can anyone help ID this fish?

Also would a sand substrate be best and at what depth?

Hello, saw that fish on aquabid.

You can read about baileyi's here: ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Freshwater/T_Baileyi/

I've read the pufferpedia post, but it has nothing on depth of substrate or even type. That puffer even looks a little different. Any help?

When I got sand for my marine puffers I was advised to get the same number of pounds of sand substrate for the # gallon tank, but I heard if it's a deeper sand bed it wouldn't hurt.

Hi snarferer, just because you can't visibly see any hairs doesn't mean it's not a Baileyi (hairy puffer). I have one and there's very little hair on him. I'm not sure why some are hairier than others. Some used to say the amount of hair determined the sex, but that's been proven untrue. Mine is still young, so I'm not sure if they get more hair as they age, or if it's just some have more hair than others.
Do you have him yet? I have a sandy substrate, but I've never noticed my Baileyi trying to bury himself, so I think you could probably go with small rounded pebbles, however, I think sand is still the better option.
Good luck with your Hairy puffer, I love mine, he's a real character!

I got the little fella yesterday! Seeing him from many more angels I'm now more certain he's a hairy puff. He's adorable. I haven't seen any personality yet. So far he just lurks. I have him on a small roundish gravel that's a planting substrate. He does seem content to just sit on it. The seller had him on guppies and he wasn't taking blackworms readily, so I'm going to try to ween him onto some other frozen/dead food. What do you feed your puffer?

Congratulations snarferer! I'm sure you will enjoy your new puff. I will tell you that my Baileyi doesn't "do" very much, he does rather just hang out in his terracotta pot. But there's just something about him that I love.
My Baileyi will only take mussels, I've not been able to get him to take anything else, and he's got this very interesting way of telling me that he doesn't want anymore. He will usually take 2 mussels, sometimes 3, but when he doesn't want anymore, he will go back down into his terracotta pot and turn his back to me.
Strangely enough, my suvattii will not take mussels at all, they only want pieces of shrimp. And yet the Palembang that I just got only seems interested in mussels, he will spit out a piece of shrimp! They all are lurkers and they all are piscivores, and yet they seem to like different things.
BTW, I'd be watching your guy closely, if the LFS had him eating guppies, he could have internal parasites. I made the mistake of allowing mine to eat some Endler's that came from a friend, and that's all it took to give my poor puff worms.

Again congrats! I'm sure you will be happy with your Hairy.

^ Thast quite funny that your palembang only eats mussels... given that my two definitely place them on the top of their list of food choices, but i rarely ever see them refuse food (at feeding time) or spit it out...

Well I fed one mussel to him, and then the next thing i put a piece of shrimp in and he came up for it, took it in his mouth and then spat it out because it wasn't mussel. When I put another piece of mussel in, he ate it readily. I guess he's a mussel puffer.

This may sound really stupid, but how do you feed them mussles? The mussles I see available are about the size of my puffer! Where do you find appropriate sized ones or do you chop them up? I was shopping for plants and I got 40 little pond snails last night for 2 bucks that i figured my puffer would enjoy, and I only see a handful in the tank.

How big is your puffer?

The size of the mussels I have are about 3/4 of an inch long, but sometimes if they are extra big, I do cut them in half, he can take some small ones whole, but if I give him some of the bigger ones whole, he will just spit alot out and make a big mess, so I try to give him enough to fit into his mouth in one go, so there's no big mess! My Baileyi is about 5-inches long, and fairly robust.

My puffer is about 3" long. I'm thinking about mussles you'd get for human consumption. Where do you get the mussles that size?

Sorry, forgot to mention where I've been getting mine. Do you have a Maidenhead Aquatics near you? If not then maybe a LFS near you might have them. They are in a little plastic packet frozen, and I just get out a bunch to thaw and keep the others frozen.