The Puffer Forum

Hello all. I'm just joining the forum and hoping to find some great advice for caring for our new puffer fish Petey.

My boyfriend and I happened upon the hobby of keeping fish after going to a fair over the summer. We thought we'd be winning stuffed animals at a game and came home with two goldfish instead. Two weeks later, after going from a fish bowl, to a 10 gallon tank, and adding two more goldfish we learned the hard way about the nitrogen cycle.

We let the tank sit for a while and then decided we'd test the water. Our water was good per the fish shop and so we tried two more fish. They sold us Cichlids and well that was pretty bad, they nearly ate each other. After returning them we traded for a puffer fish which we had loved from the first time we had seen him. We didn't initially buy him because we wanted to make sure the tank was ok for ANY fish before upgrading to a puffer like him.

So, now Petey is home, we have him alone in a 10 gallon tank with plans to upgrade to a larger tank in the future. They sold him to us as a green spotted but I wanted to post a picture here for help with identifying him because he doesn't look like the pictures I researched of green spotteds. He ate two minnows today and seems to be doing well in the tank, which we primed with some salt before putting him in.

I'd like to eventually removed the fake plants from the tank and replace them with rocks for him to swim around. We put a glass in the tank for his hiding spot and he really likes that.

That is NOT a green spotted puffer. It is a freshwater puffer, but I need to see a side picture to give you a proper id.

Most likely you won't need larger than a 20 gallon tank for him.

Welcome to the forum! Definetly not a green spotted puffer. Please try to get some shots at different angles that we may properly identify.

Thank you both! He's (I designated him as male lol) very active but I did what I could do get some side shots. He likes to go over near the bubbler and play around there.

I tried posting these last night but they never showed up today. We now have a new problem, bought a 37 gallon tank, use Aragonite sand for substrate and the tank is VERY cloudy, can't see through the water at all. I read through past posts from people with similar problems and I tried adding pillow stuffing to the filter but still nothing. We set the tank up yesterday around 2pm and this morning at 730am it doesn't seem much different.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Our puffer is still in his 10 gallon tank and seems to be doing well. I bought a pro testing kit and realized that the strips we had were wrong, there IS ammonia in the water. I've got it down to 1-2ppm and have been doing 2 water changes a day.

We bought him some fish and ghost shrimp yesterday which he devoured.

Please read the Library articles on feeding your puffer. Fish are a bad choice & GS have very little nutrition, unless gut-loaded.

feeding un-quarantined live food may end up causing your puffer to develop infections and/or parasites
you really need to define exactly which puffer you have in order to determine what foods are best, and what kind of substrate and décor will be appropriate
guessing at this stuff will not get you where you need to go
beautiful fish, by the way!

Get him on dead foods for sure and invest in a nice pair of feeding tongs. Make sure to look at the feeding articles here on the site and get some vitamin supplements for his food.

Great looking little puffer by the way!

Thank you everyone! We love him, he's quite the character. Thank you for the advice on the feeding, I'll switch to dead food tomorrow, and I'm still working on identifying him, though I thought he looked similar to the brown puffers I've seen on here?

I think maybe he's a tetraodon abei?

With the added pics I think your spot on with the Tetradon abei. Great looking puff you have there.

Thanks so much!!!

Great looking puff you have there.