The Puffer Forum

evrything i read online kinda clashes, i cant find out exactly how big they are when they are fully grown!!!
i gathered about 3 inch roughly, any! have a fully grown sap???

According to the wikipedia page on South American Puffers they are generally 3 inch but it also states that up to 5.9 inch have been reported. No idea about the correctness of that information.

Glaser a german fish importer/distributor has Colomesus asellus listed at both 2-3 inch and 4 - 4.5 inch. But I have no idea if fish size is measured with the dorsal fin or without, with puffers that can make quite a difference . Or if the measurement is even different per continent/country.

In fish sizing, Standard Length (SL) is the measure from the nose to caudal peduncle. The caudal peduncle is the dividing line between the body and the caudal (tail) fin. Total Length (TL) is from the nose to the tip of the tail. Capture fish ad preserved fish in collections may well not have intact caudal fins.

Dorsal fins do not affect the length.

I have: 3". Also seen them at the public aquarium in the hundreds. Poor dentistry there...

Pufferpunk wrote:I have: 3". Also seen them at the public aquarium in the hundreds. Poor dentistry there...

Makes no senses to me to keep them in those number, given the growth rate of their teeth.

+1 to PP's comments. Saps appear to have the fastest growing dental plates in the family. Thatr means that they require a diet of very high "crunch factor" I use ~95% home reared snails to keep them in control.

I do not understand what the numbert of fish kept should have to do with tooth overgrowth. Proper tooth growth control is a function of diet, not population.

so evry1 seems to have the same prob as me !!! i see some1 has a 3inch sap so we can safely say they get that size, but the net says allsorts!!!! cheers for your replys, its helped a little

The very large measurements >>3" are probably wrong IDs of C. psittacus, which looks somewhat similar and can occur in the lower branches of rivers. This species reaches 1 foot. To be sure one would have to check Tyler's work from 1964 on this genus and the material he used.