The Puffer Forum

We've had dwarf puffers for a while, since last August I believe it was. My wife and I are now considering some bigger puffers. Our current thought is to go with SAP's. We want something bigger than DP's, something freshwater (not wanting to mess with brackish or marine yet) and something fairly active.

We're thinking of getting a 75 gallon tank and putting 4 of them in there. My only concern really is will we be able to feed them enough snails so we won't have to trim their teeth. We've got a 10 gallon tank for snails for the DP's right now. Would it be possible to just get bigger snails and let them breed? Any thoughts from anyone who has SAP's?

-Kenny

My old SAP I had a few years ago would have its teeth constantly grow even when fed about 3 dozen snails a week. So in the end looking at ways to not trim their teeth will be inevidable. Extremely active little puffs that are great fun to watch. Make sure to have some surrent in the tank for them to play with.

surrent? Do you mean current? And how hard is it to trim their teeth really? I've read the article on here about Puffer Dentistry and it doesn't sound like something I'd want to do. Knock out your fish and use a nail trimmer on them.

-Kenny

I forgot to mention, the other possibility for new puffers is GSP's or Figure 8's. There's a LFS that always seems to have them and they just look so cool! I've never had anything besides freshwater, so I'm not sure how hard brackish or saltwater are.

-Kenny

I dont have any experience with SAPs but my experience with F8s is that if they have crunchy food common in their diet then dentistry is usually not a problem - but is sometimes required. I would say about every 6-9 months or so I would have to do something about it.

MP

It doesnt seem to matter how many snails you feed to SAP they still need to have their teeth trimmed every now and then. My guys generally need their doing about every 3-4 months. Its a bit nerve racking the first few times but after a while you get used to it.

BW isn't much harder than FW - RTR told me that, and he was right. You just need a hydrometer or refractometer, some sea salt, and about 15 extra minutes of time.

Since I only have a low BW F8 tank (at 1.005 SG), I can mix up the salt and let it sit about 10 minutes after stirring vigorously to make sure it's mixed.

Plants don't do well in BW - that's my only problem with a BW tank.

I've had my F8 for 11 months now. I feed snails once per week or twice per week (he's fed every other day), frozen and freeze dried krill, crayfish (cooked, frozen as a treat - can't get raw in my area), and muscles weekly (they scrape their teeth against the shell's insides). So far, no dentistry needed and his teeth look fine. I now have pond snails breeding in my FW community tank, so my snail population is increasing at a goodly rate now and I plan to feed snails twice per week from here on out.

Eric

The majority of my puffer's diets, especially when young, are snails. I do believe RTR fed an ~85% snail diet to his SAP's and they required very little, if any trimming.

Yup, I all but never had to trim a SAP's teeth, but I believe that the diet would be 90%+ snails. SAPs have the advantage for me in preferring planted tanks and frquently co-existing well with conspecifics. Other than DPs, they are the best puffer on that score for me. Multiple F-8s in a tank and I always had to remove some by or after sexual maturity (a year and a half to two years seemed the critical period for me).

I still see light BW as not significamtly different from FW in upkeep - but I do age all my water, so having a different label on the container was not a big deal. I have multiple reservoirs anyway. Multiple snail tanks is not an issue for me either. Having too many tanks has its benefits.

I had a pair of them, but I did not enjoy them like I do my F8s and GSPs. They just swam up and down all day and really did not have any personality at all. I kept them for about six months but I felt they were more work than they were worth (for me)

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I'm curious about SAP's personalities... We've currently got dwarf puffers and for our next puffers, we're definitely wanting puffers with lots of personality. Our DP's will come up and look at us, and one will even follow us as we move from one side of the tank to the other. I'd like bigger puffers with more personality.

So with that in mind, SAP's or GSP's or Figure 8's?

-Kenny

My figure 8 is full of personality, and I moved up from DPs, too, because I wanted such a cool fish but in a slightly larger size.

I've not kept SAPs or GSPs.

Eric

SAPs in general are much more independently-minded IME. They are there for food, but do not interact with the keeper like F-8s or GSPs. I suspect this has to with being a schooler in the wild.

My experience with SAPs has been that they are interactive, my SAP Leo does nothing but chase the finger if I stand near the tank!