The Puffer Forum

My friend has been offered a free puffer by a guy she knows, and she has no experience with them, but knows that I love them. BUT, I want to know what I'm getting myself into first! All I have to go on is a very brief description and 2 bad photos. I am including the photos. Here is the description: "i have a freshwater aquarium with a 3- 4" puffer fish i need to get rid of. All green tortoise shell pattern on back and white belly; red eyes with arrow shape on head. Fairly solitary amongst other fish but very personable with owner." plus these two photos is all I have to go on. The guy is out of town until mid February so there is no way to get in touch with him till then.

So the "facts" are:
- Freshwater puffer (but may be actually brackish, considering that some people get confused about that)
- 3 - 4 inches long (8 - 10 centimeters long)
- Green "tortoise shell pattern" on the back with a white belly
- Red eyes
- Arrow shape on head
- "Solitary with other fish" so either he feels lousy and doesn't want to nip fins and hunt them OR he isn't very predatory... I don't know...





So based on this very sparse info, what do ya'll think... I already looked in the Pufferpedia, but I'm not sure on an i.d. based on my given information and really bad photos...

Well, its hard to tell from those pictures, but it is likely a turgidus, or one of the other smaller freshwater species. It is freshwater, that much I can tell you, and will need a tank probably in the 20-30 gallon range.. I don't think it looks like one of the red eyes (and 3-4 inches would be too big), and turgidus can look like they have red eyes depending on the lighting, and of course the other target species are all similar.

But I think you'd be save to expect something under 30 gallons and freshwater. Likely one of the target puffers, turgidus, fangs, abei, etc.

Yeah, you're telling me, hence my coming to the forum asking for help, lol! I wish I could go see the fish before hand and then I'd know for sure! I appreciate your input, I hadn't even thought of the Turgidus puffer, but that looks most likely... Thanks, and if anybody has any additional info or other guesses at the blurry pics be my guest! Thanks!

I'm not sure what kind of puffer is a turgidus, but I think the puffer in the pictures is a Green Spotted puffer. I say this because in your first post, FishyFriend, you mentioned that the description said something about them being freshwater but they are actually brackish/marine water fish and that a lot of people get confused on this. And Green Spotted puffers are often mistaken for freshwater when they are really brackish to marine water.

Mrs.Puff wrote:I'm not sure what kind of puffer is a turgidus, but I think the puffer in the pictures is a Green Spotted puffer. I say this because in your first post, FishyFriend, you mentioned that the description said something about them being freshwater but they are actually brackish/marine water fish and that a lot of people get confused on this. And Green Spotted puffers are often mistaken for freshwater when they are really brackish to marine water.

Before seeing the pictures I would have been more inclined to agree with you... but owning two GSPs myself I really don't believe that the puffer in question is one. I definitely don't think he could have gotten 3-4 inches long living in Freshwater. The coloring is not right either. GSPs almost always have a lot more of a contrast between the green and the black spots on them, plus it would be unusual for the arrow marking on the head to be on a GSP, cause their spots are usually more rounded. While the puffer in question may be a GSP, I definitely think it is far more likely that it is something like the Turgidus (follow the link provided): ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Freshwater/T_Turgidus/ But thanks for your guess... that was my first guess too!

Definitely not a Green Spotted Puffer. Turgdis or Red Spot would be my best guess from the pictures, leaning more to the Turgdis. That is definitely a FW species though, not BW, and honestly if it is a Turgdis or Red Spot, not a community fish either.

He kind of reminds me of my Turgdis, I really like mine a lot.

I'm leaning towards turgidus, as he's a bit too green for either of my Abei's. My Byron Abei can look very much like my turgidus at times, like tonight before I fed him, but then he changes colour and goes back to looking like an Abei again.

They are nice fish, but definitely not one to be put with any tankmates. I bought an Oto thinking it could do something about the algae problem and probably would not be noticed by Hymie (Abei), and they lived together for a few days, and then one morning I found the Oto dead with his tummy ripped open. So much for having an algae eater in there. I still have the algae problem, so the next thing I'm going to try is a shrimp. See how that goes.

On either side, near his tail, he should have a spot. Is it red or black?

The fact that its trying to back into a cave also makes me lean towards turgidus, they love their caves!

Turgidus also do have a sort of "patch" on their head that would fit the description of "arrow".. its definately NOT an arrowhead puffer though!

Pufferpunk wrote:On either side, near his tail, he should have a spot. Is it red or black?

I don't know as I haven't seen him in real life yet. My friend is getting him from a friend of hers. He finally emailed her back and this is what he said:

"I bought him listed as a red eye puffer, but from what I've seen from pics online it's prolly not, avacodo puffer maybe, arrowhead? Not rel sure"

But the puffer in the blurry pictures doesn't really look like any of those. It looks most like the "Red Eye" but from his description is too big to be a red eye. I agree that he's definitely not an arrowhead puffer, lol, he doesn't look remotely like that! I was looking at the avocado/golden puffers and they don't appear to have patterning on them as this one does. I'm even more mind boggled now.... I still think the current guess is most likely. I appreciate your help and I look forward to finding out what Puffer X really is!

When are you due to get puffer-x ?

After I wrote the above comment, I went back and looked at those photos again ..... and I'm thinking that maybe that puffer is a cutcutia, it looks very similar to my cutcutia, as the green is lighter than the green on my turgidus, and also, the cutcutia have that reddish look to their eyes.

So I'm changing my guess to a Tetraodon cutcutia

"Red eye" is a very broad term. The puffers we are guessing about are of the "target" species, which also have red eyes, same as the smaller, Carinotetraodon species.

Yep, depending on lighting and mood, the target species can really change their colors, and their eyes will look different too. Sometimes Bubba's eyes look red, other times, green and blue irridescent.

I'm sticking to turgidus most likely for a specific species, target family for sure

Okay, I tried and tried to get a good photo of my cutcutia today, so I could show you just how much I think it looks like the pictures at the start of this post.

This is the best I can do .... but I still do think it looks like the puffer in question.