The Puffer Forum

Hi everyone! I'm quite new to the forums and thought this is the best place to get information and help for puffers.

I went to the local LFS and saw this cute Porcupine Puffer about 1-2inches long. Would it be ok to keep him in a 3 gallon tank until he grows out of it? I also have a 150 gallon when he does. The 3 gallon tank has a light source and a AquaClear 20. I figured if they are slow growers I can have him till the end of the semester, while setting up the 150, and place him in the 150 when he grows out of the 3 gallon. I am also getting ready for a 30 gallon tank so that could be the next tank he has before the 150.

It's already outgrown the 3gal. Why not wait until the 150gal is up and ready for one? Porcs seem to be very common. You never know what will happen between now and then, something might happen and then you'll be stuck with a large fish that doesn't have a suitable home.

Moving up a tank when you've deemed that it has outgrown the current one is a perfect recipe for stunting.

Anything you recommend doing with the 3 gallon then? Mini Reef? Invert?

Find some garden snails at a store (might be hard depending on season and geographical location)

a 3 gal would be great to breed garden snails in; they are not picky at all, and you can feed them lettuce and such.

Feed one or two of the snails you grow to the little porc puff you get, they LOVE them and that should do for keeping their teeth worn down so you don't have a problem with the puffer in the future.

Also I bred mollies back in the day to feed to a lion fish but they would need a tank 10x the size of a 3 gallon, only suitable thing i can think of is a snail breeder.

invert tank. Keep that food supply up.

porkies don't have teeth .. they have these crushing plates. Kind of like my smiley toothless grandfather

Be patient!

Very strong +1 to Flutter's comments.

Puffers, by definition, have four fused dental plates - two upper, two lower. Each is composed of what starts in the embryo as several teeth.

The difference in the boxfishes is that they have single upper and lower plates (therefore two incisor plates rather than four as for puffers). There are other differences as well, but those mark the nomenclature division between the closely related fish groups.

I think I will start a invert breeding tank. Hopefully that will give me a steady supply of food for the puffer without worrying about running out.