The Puffer Forum

I know the text book answer to this one I was just interested what your personal experiences are.

LOL! I cannot resist, since this is the first reply - 12 to 18+ years in my care (all were immature at purchase)

Edit: OOPS! That was an incomplete post - the numbers given were for light BW, 1.003-1.005.

The results for FW were lower, 7-10 years in my aged tap water, GH ~9, KH ~7.

All fish were in 10, 15 or 20-long tanks, all RFUG (some OE-RFUG). The BW trial used aragonite substrate, the FW trial used inert Estes natural gravel. All had at least one internal or external canister for mechanical filtration and current. All had significant decor. All were on 12 hour light/dark cycles. All were at 76-80F (tank room ambient, no individual heaters). Partials were 1/3 -1/2 weekly, all water aged, BW held 48 hours or more tempered and circulated after Instant Ocean marine mix addition to aged tap water.

All fish were solitary (one per tank) but all could see and interact with at least one conspecific in an abutting tank (some could see two conspecifics).

All were fed lin-house tank-raised common pond or ramshorn snails as >95% of their diet. treats were given sporadically, of a wide variety of items, no single item ever repeated frequently.

RTR wrote:LOL! I cannot resist, since this is the first reply - 12 to 18 years in my care (all were immature at purchase)

Unlucky, the first poster is the legend himself!

LOL

I have had one for 5 years but the one I bought at the same time died recently. Just lost weight untill it looked really sickly then died. I don't know how old they were when I bought them. They grew some after I got them but were already fairly large so I don't think they were very young.

Are you keeping in brackish water?

Also, what size tank where they in, what kind of maintenance were you doing and what were you feeding? Those are the basics I'd begin with in attempting to figure out what went wrong.

Good grief Charlie Brown! You folks will have me editting my post forever...

Ummm... RTR, I think bosshogg's question was directed toward snail. I know mine were.

I think so, too - but - I looked back at mine and I had not specified what my F-8s were in either. Then someone mentioned tank sizes, upkeep, so those were each added, the tenps, then mix, and I threw in lighting before anybody mentioned it. At least I did not own a TDS meter back then, so TDS was N/D.

RTR, we're still waiting on that study for our Library!

That will not happen - I have completely given up data mining of old notes. My vision is not and likely never will be again up to that. Scanning in and trying to mine old hand-written notes just is not in the cards. Working with already electonic data is more than hard enough. A simple text revision now takes days where it once took minutes to an hour or so.

Sounds like RTR needs a research assistant.

My F8 is in a brackish water 36 gallon tank. But my question wasn't really about my fish just general. I know what the official info is about how long F8s live for but just like people it must vary and of course the conditions play a big part. I was just interested in as many peoples personal experiences as possible.