Pick the Puffer

[petebsbll]

I will keep this short and sweet. I know everyone on here has excellent knowledge of Puffers. I am limited in the freshwater area however as I only have a Stars and Stripes. I have a 55 gallon aquarium. Is there any Type of freshwater Puffer I could put in this that would never need to go into brackish in its adult stage? Pufferpunk I know you can help me out on this one.

Thank you,

-Peter

[Myaj]

Sure there are.

First decide what type of puffer you want. An agressive lurker type that won't do much unless its feeding time, or more active (but smaller) schooling types, or something in between where you might be able to keep a pair or so together without them killing each other.

If you check out the Pufferpedia (link at the top of every page here) and look under Freshwater puffers, there's some photos and descriptions of sizes, requirements and basic behavior of the freshwater species out there.

[petebsbll]

Thank you for directing my attention to the PufferPedia. I completely forgot about that awsome search tool. If only LFS carried some of these guys for sale. Any idea where to get my hands on some of those puffers? I am in Ohio.

Thanks

[Myaj]

Sometimes you can order the more rare species online, watch places like fish2u.com, aquabid.com.

If you'd rather not order online, its somewhat of a watch and wait game. Keep doing the rounds of local stores, ask if they can special order certian species for you. Puffers seem to be somewhat seasonal.. you won't see something like SAP's for months, then they are all over the place. For the last few months, there's been modestus and silus everywhere and no SAP's. I've only seen irrubescos locally ONE time, in the last 10 or so years. Dwarf puffers can be found, but you need to make sure you know what you are looking for and don't get talked into buying a small GSP by accident.

Also, keep an eye on the forum down below where people post when they've seen cool puffers available recently. Sometimes something will be local to you.

[nmonks]

This is the time of year for SAPs, when the South American stuff starts coming in. I heartily recommend them for being sociable (they're best in a group), not too big (8 cm), and hardy (by puffer standards, anyway). Their only flaws are fast-growing teeth (but these are manageable) and a certain tetra-like character that isn't so engaging as the larger Asian and African species. On the plus side, they are very active, not at all shy, and can work with fast-moving tankmates (though choose these with care).

Cheers, Neale

PS. There's a nice summary in the articles section, here:

http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/ ... uffer.html

[saynever]

i hope the season holds out for another few months,...

[Pufferpunk]

Just be aware, you will be trimming those puffer's teeth every 4-6 months!

[nmonks]

I'm not trimming my SAP's teeth at all. I have one specimen that I've had for 15 months or so, and except for trimming its teeth once shortly after buying it purely so I could see if I was able to do it, I haven't had to trim them at all.

I don't know whether it's the sand grind the teeth down when it feeds, or if it's the baby Malayan livebearer snails in the sand that wear the teeth down, but either way, it seems to work. I added two more SAPs about six months ago, and neither have shown any significant tooth growth. They were both a bit buck-toothed when I bought them, but being very small specimens I haven't had the courage to trim their teeth. Regardless, the teeth aren't any worse six months on.

I should add that I don't give them huge numbers of snails from my pond. In terms of food, they're getting krill and bloodworm (frozen, not dried). They also get live daphnia when they're in the garden pond.

Am I just lucky? I assume not. There's something about sand that seems to help. Any thoughts or similar experiences?

Cheers, Neale

[kangaroosoup]

Can you elaborate a little more on the whole sand thing? Do you mean your SAPs actively digging into the sand for the malays an having their teeth worn down that way?

[nmonks]

Don't know. I'm open to explanations here. Others with sandy aquaria have reported a similar thing, so I don't think this is a freak.

My guess is that the sand favours the growth of Malayan livebearing snails, and that the puffers hunt out the teeny-tiny baby snails. I've seen them eat them, and they only take specimens up to 1 mm in size. They ignore the bigger snails. I only feed my puffers once a day, and sometimes with food they don't really like (e.g., krill) and often the tetras steal the food anyway. So my guess is the puffers are taking baby snails quite frequently when hungry.

It's possible the sand itself is also an abrasive in some way, but I'm not sure.

Cheers, Neale

Can you elaborate a little more on the whole sand thing? Do you mean your SAPs actively digging into the sand for the malays an having their teeth worn down that way?

[Pufferpunk]

Very interesting. I learn something new from you every day!

[nmonks]

Pufferpunk -- I was actually rather hoping some puffer keeper of your calibre might actually have heard of this happening. I've kept too few species of puffers to really have any kind of spread of knowledge. I'm also aware that Malayan snails are not without risks as puffer food, so I'm hesitant to say "they're the answer".

Cheers, Neale

[Myaj]

I don't think its the snails. The sand maybe...

When I had my SAP, he was in a tank that had a fairly large amount of MTS. I never saw him hunt them, and he needed his teeth trimmed every 3-4 months. The tank was heavily planted with whatever ramshnorns and red cherry shrimp he could catch, and I kept a breeding tank of snails going which he was fed from daily. His teeth still grew like crazy. I know the snail shells werent' soft, they were so hard I could cut my self if I crushed them for any reason...

Then again, it was only one, stunted puffer. If I had more, maybe they would have done better, teeth wise?

But the tank had Eco Complete for a substrate, not sand.

[Fella]

Pufferpunk -- I was actually rather hoping some puffer keeper of your calibre might actually have heard of this happening. I've kept too few species of puffers to really have any kind of spread of knowledge. I'm also aware that Malayan snails are not without risks as puffer food, so I'm hesitant to say "they're the answer".

Cheers, Neale

I also had exactly the same with my 2 SAP's which both ate MTS snails (whether I liked it or not, if they're in the tank, terminating them is nigh on impossible.). I never had to trim their teeth, because I believe they were eating the young ones. I bought both those puffers as new, had one for 6 months, one for 4 months (before both succumbing to different illness), and neither showed any signs of needing their teeth trimmed.