The Puffer Forum

Hi all! I have been lurking and reading and learning on this site for a while. Time to say hi! Today I got my first puffer.

I have been keeping and breeding fish for about 4 years. It all started as a "gift" aquarium idea with a few PetSmart fish for one of my sons (no real interest there however) and morphed into a full-fledged hobby for me. Most of my fish are/were cichlids from Lake Tanganyika, Lake Victoria, Lake Barombi Mbo and West African rivers. Most are also on the CARES conservation list. So, I feel I did my little part in spreading a few endangered/critical fish to other keepers throughout the US. I needed to take a break from all the breeding/fry raising/selling and have really pared down my "collection" to only 2 species.

Now I have some empty tank space and decided to look for something REALLY different. I was fascinated by arowanas, but decided I would never have the space for such a huge tank. So...somehow I became enamored with puffers. With the help of this great site, I narrowed it down to freshwater species and ended up with.........a dragon puffer. Will work on a name soon.

He/she arrived today and seems to be doing fine after a careful acclimation to his 40B. He hasn't moved at all (except for his eyes ), so I'll give him some time in the dark to get his bearings. Hopefully all will go well and he'll start to eat.

Thank you for what you do for endangered species!
You'll have to upload your photos to Photobucket & line them here for us to see.

Thanks! Had fun with the CARES fish for a while. Lots of fry to spread around.
Sorry about the puffer pics. Accidentally moved to new folder and messed it up...Fixed now, I think.

Tried to feed an earthworm. Not sure if he ate it, or it slithered away and hid somewhere. The puffer likes to hang out in a log and came out to explore the tank quite a bit last night when the lights went out. I dangled a piece of thawed people shrimp, but he wasn't interested. I'll try the earthworm again this am, if not I might get a few (gut-loaded) ghost shrimp and see if he goes for them.

I'm not sure what happened to my most recent post (MIA), but oh well...

Anyway, I got my new dragon puffer to eat an earthworm and some chunks out of a "human" shrimp. So, I guess we are getting somewhere. He likes to hang out in a log, so I am going to try to entice him to actually come out in the open and eat.

Sometimes I miss new posts that need approval. It stops the spammers from getting in.