I'd like to put a group of puffers in my planted tank. It will be a 96 gallon heavily planted tank. Fow or no other fish. I will start a shrimp population before adding the puffers.
Questions:
1) I was reading about an Amazonian species that can be kept in groups and that grows to about 3". What species? OK in a group?
2) What happens if they run out of snails? I know they will eat other foods but need the snails for keeping their "beak" trim. Sounds like my parrott
Purplecandle has provided you with some excellent articles to read It is SAPs that you are talking about and they'd probably be quite happy in a group in a tank that size. Chances are though they will decimate your snail and shrimp populations. If you want to keep a running supply of them you will need a second tank to breed them in. Sometimes you just can't provide enough crunchy food and in that case you can get some MS-222. It's a sedative that you can use so you'll be able to safely trim their teeth. There's an article on that and I made a thread a while ago when I did their teeth and it has pictures as well.
Unfortunately, it's pretty likely that they will damage some of your plants. Ours paced the glass quite badly and the power of their swimming made it impossible for the plants to survive in those areas. Things that I would have changed had we known differently would be to make sure the plants are well established before the puffers go in and use hardy/tough/fast growing plants along all glass edges that will be planted. That may simply be the solution to that problem
These are pretty, social, and active puffers. They're a joy to watch and are very powerful swimmers and are voracious and talented hunters. Keep in mind, they are very neurotic and high energy. They will pace. Make sure you are alright with that. If you're looking for a relaxing tank then they may not be the fish for you. If you're looking for an active predator tank and want a splash of colour that many other FW puffers can't offer then they may be the fish for you
It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another. We consider those, when the cerebral structure/intellectual faculties most developed, as highest. A bee doubtless would when the instincts were.
Charles Darwin
It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another. We consider those, when the cerebral structure/intellectual faculties most developed, as highest. A bee doubtless would when the instincts were.
Charles Darwin
The big thing you want in an ideal SAP tank is two sections, the "run" and the "jungle" as I know call them in my head. The run will ideally be in the front of the tank, with only a substrate or very low growing plants. Depending on how your filter works, you may be able to use it to create the strong current across the run, but if it's an HOB or a canister just not up to that, there are many cheap powerheads you could use instead. The run ensures they have constant feeling of river current, which SHOULD reduce glass surfing.
The "jungle" is the hunting area, where the will dart to examine for food or other things of interest. I recommend it be mostly plants at least as tall as the tank(some bending over before trim never hurt a plant), though a few interwoven slightly shorter plants are OK(good resting places, etc. As has been mentioned, these are perhaps the ONLY truly social puffer, so the tall decor is not to reduce puffer on puffer violence, but simply because these fish seem to be born with ADD, and are smart, to they won't pick through plants (for food) they can just swim over to get a birds-eye view that will answer the question of whether or not there's something worth doing in the "jungle." With 80% or so of the mid-ground/background plants as high as the tank, they will need to survey around the plants periodically, and all the better if you have stuff for them there. The maturing shrimp you mention are an ideal lure.
Also as a SAP sidenote, since you've already heard the beak trimming possibility - Neale Monks, quite the fish keeper, said he kept a colony of Malaysian Trumpet Snails (normally never recommended as puffer food becuase of a couple accounts of F8's actually chipping a tooth whilst trying too enthusiastically to bite through the MTS' thicker shell.) So these MTS lived in the substrate,in the tank with a batch of SAPS, and these SAPS did NOT need trimming every half year, which wold be great - even if they have the same risk of a chipped tooth as a F8: that injury would likely be only temporary, as their teeth are like rodent teeth, always restoring. There are also many SAP owners who have lost a beloved fish due to sedation, either by clove oil dosage problem or other problems stemming from insufficient research or availability of independent research on other sedatives.
Sedatives are generally the type where they can say that if you do it once, that's all you need to collect your data, transport your stock, or do whatever research you need to do. For farmed fish,this may only happen once,and thus not be a problem Overall, I trust MS222 above clove oil(I smoked clove cigarettes for years and years, till they were banned in the USA honestly, and the smoke has an unusual, numbing-yet-with-no-disassociation quality, effect, due to the clove bits and even Euganol (pure clove essential oil)
Personally, I trim puffer teeth without anesthetic of any kind; I just net the puffer, hold it gently in the net,below the surface the water using a VERY clean, freshly washed hand. Then i slowly go for it, trying to move in the clippers for the nip-nip. Not had any real trouble with this method, but I suspect really big/strong puffers would NEED to be sedated. Nothing you'd have to worry about with SAPS.
Certainly a chipped tooth is an unfortunate event, and as a result I only feed them to puffers which have proved to me they know to let GO if something is too hard; my GSPs, which live with live rock and bite the hell out of it regularly going after 'pods, can safely eat MTS; MTS are harder than any fresh/brackish water snail, but nowhere NEAR as tough as hard coralskelleton which make up live rock.
No matter how magnificent your successes or devastating your failures, the worlds' approximately 5 billion impoverished people could not possibly care less.
FYI: I also have a 55 gal "shrimp farm" and manually kill several snails a day to keep their population down. My shrimp population is growing so fast, I wouldn't mind using some of them as "puffer food". Seems like they would peak the interest of the "hunters".
Thanks for the input folks. I'm reading the articles now. The "beak trimming" sounds a little scarry though
Last edited by Larry Grenier on Fri Jun 18, 2010 11:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
I have to disagree with Neale monks on using MTS with SAPs. Not in my fish tanks, never. SAP puffer incisors are a bit more more fragile than F-8s IME, and an untrimmed broken incisor is a death sentence due to the overgrowth of the opposing incisor. The MTS will go nocturnal under predation pressures in any case, and not provide sufficient available food to contribute significantly to the puffer's protein or crunch requirement. In such tanks only diggers such as loaches can still get to the MTS, the puffers cannot.
But once ! learned to feed SAPs only ramshorn and common pond snails I only very rarely had any incisor issues. Shrimp just are not crunchy enough to wear down SAP incisors. They certainly can be used as an occasional treat, the fish will enjoy hunting for them, but they are insufficient as a staple food at any significant level of the SAP's diet.
The "run and jungle" layout suggested is IMHO the best way to set a SAP tank, but I have routinely used external canisters for the driving power of the run, setting a vertical spray bar returns at one end of the tank with the output parallel with the front glass. But I do multi-filter all of my tanks, largely with multiple canisters per tank. I am a Val nut, so that is the primary background plant in such setups, with a second canister single output (return) at the opposite end near the back wall just below the surface. It will bend the Val leaves nicely in the completion of the basically circular tank current. If a third canister is used, its return is usually split into two return spray bars, mounted near the substrate with their release vertical up the back wall. I generally carpet the front (run) with Anubias b.nana, or Anubias petite. If the tank has sufficient front-to-back depth, I used assorted Crypts between the front carpet and the background Val, with color and height variations to avoid the farm-row planting look.
When I had my SAP's, I had a nicely planted tank and they loved swimming around the plants. I had a fairly good output on my filter, so they would swim in the current and that happened to go around these plants. I think it made life more interesting for them, and although they did pace a little bit, they did a fair bit of swimming as well.
I too, am a Val nut and the tall mature plants fare much better than the young runners in my tank. Any Val under eight inches doesn't seem to stand a chance. I'm beginning to think that maybe they like the taste of young Vals, because they are continuously chewed to beyond the point of salvation. I have two Aponogeton ulvaceus plants in the tank and they seem to be impervious to the SAPs abuse. The leaves of the ulvaceus were made to be explored by puffers!
I've just recently gotten Aponogeton ulvaceus -- what a lovely plant! So pretty and so far, so easy to grow. I am exploring more of the Aponogeton's now.
One note that may be important on Neale's MTS/SAP experience.. his water is on the soft side, which may lead to softer snail shells than is usual, possibly even softer puffer teeth, making them easier to wear down.
I've kept SAP's in a tank that was, unfortunately, infested with MTS snails, but mine never even tried to crack those suckers. I needed a hammer to do so, and think a smaller puffer would not even be able to come close (of course my burrfish, with her crushing plates, thought they were the world's greatest snack). My water, however, is "liquid rock". Even with a steady supply of pond, ramshorn and red cherry shrimp to hunt down, my SAP's still needed regular tooth trimming (and yes, avoid clove oil.. after multiple uses, it does do harm and in my case, the fish eventually just didn't wake up).
