How to tell a Puffer's age?

[thejoie]

It's Zoe's first day home... she ate some brine shrimp and some bloodworms but she's ignoring the snail I plopped in there. But I'm happy that she's eating!

She's about 2.5 inches..... I promise pictures tomorrow!

I'm curious if there's any way to tell the age of a puffer?

[LilGreenPuffer]

If there are sexual dimorphisms (the genders look different), then you can tell whether or not a fish is an adult, and if it's still a juvenile, you can usually tell how old it is. Other than that, I think you just have to rely on size, and this will vary a lot from species to species, depending on growth rate and if the fish was stunted before you got it. What kind of puffer do you have? Was it kept in poor conditions for a long period before you got it?

[thejoie]

She's a Figure 8 puffer...
I'm not sure how long she was in the pet store where she was but when I found her she swam right up to the glass and she seemed in good shape. She's not as fat as some of the puffers I see on here but she's active and she's exploring her tank really well (I need more plants!)

The first picture is her in the bag yesterday and the second is her in her tank today!

[qtrhorse89]

Awwww she's cute. Idk how you got her to sit still, I try to grab a pic of Hikaru but all I ever get is either a blurred pic or the last part of his tail as he zips off to another part of the tank. hehe He's camera shy I guess. As far as I know you can't tell which gender a fig 8 is so that method of finding the age of a puffer won't work. I would assume that if she was healthy at the lfs and is only 2.5 inches then she's still a juvenile since their adult size is 3-4inches but you'd have to wait for the experts to get on to confirm that.