The Puffer Forum

Just been down in one of the fish stores here in town. I asked the manager for some snails for my DPs - and thereby accidentally mentioned the words "puffer fish". I shouldn't have done that because then the manager started explaining to me just how big this fish would be (held out his arms and mesured app. 1.5 feet and told me that "pygmy" sounded odd to him) and that it was really a brackish water fish as it lived in the deltas of rivers and that it would turn green if it was kept in a brackish tank where it rightly belonged!! The information on the Internet was pretty much useless to him and back in the old days people also thought that the figure 8 puffer was freshwater. And besides he knew the man who imported most of the tropical fish to Denmark and.... and... so on. It was terrible!

I tried to confirm by the latin name that we were talking about the same fish, and yes yes he knew what it was, he had had all the puffers in his store over the years!

Please help me, do we know for sure that DPs are 100% freshwater their entire lives and is he just an idiot - or is he right?
I just need to know for myself

I would not trust anyone from a lfs, they often have little or outdated knowledge on species like puffers.

On this and other puffer forums the information given is viewed and commented on by a quantity of other members, the guy in the lfs has no such scrutiny.

So is the information here better than a lfs, yes. Not only do you have the ability to talk to a large number of people, but those people actually have puffers as pets.

Yes, yes, it is always better to come here for your info than to rely on those who work at your LFS. Unless, of course, your LFS is Petco in State College, PA. Then you can talk to me.

That LFS owner is an idiot. Rampant ignorance is a curable condition with a bit of study, but militant stupidy is permanent in too many cases. There are only two puffers in FW & BW which reach or exceed a foot and half (the fahaka and T. mbu), most are smaller to much smaller, and DPs are the smallest of the lot and are stricly FW.

Anyone who claims to have had all the puffers through his shop is defining himself just by that comment. If the topic ever comes up again (I would avoid it if possible), suggest that he look it up on Fishbase ( http://www.fishbase.org ). That is not a hobby site.

the first spawning of dwarfs (the imitator type) in a tank was actually done in brackish water (SG about 1,003). Some lakes (esp. Vembanad, hope the spelling is right) in which they occur are part of the back waters, which actually have a similar SG. To avoid confusion: I'd put dp in freshwater, the rivers in which they occur are freshwater.

(copied from http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/vie ... kish+dwarf)

Phew, thank you so much for your replies... Normally I don't trust LFS but this man was just so stubborn and persistant.

I don't know anything about where DPs spawn in nature, but I'll go with RTR and "strictly FW" Then I believe I'm not "torturing" my DPs by keeping them in FW.

If the dwarf gets to be a foot and a half long, how big does he think a non-dwarf puffer would get?

The guy is an idiot

I liked the bit where he said it would turn green.

What next? it would sprout legs and can-can in your tank?

LOL!!!

So he's actually seen a 1 1/2' DP???

Sounds like an interesting DP that...

Or rather an interesting person working in the lfs. Every time I think I've heard it all from such people, they say something that make me almost go into shock

I really liked the idea of the DP turning green It sounds like a vegetable...

If you need more funny stories told by lfs, I do have my share too...
Like "all fish is bred in the same water quality, and therefore all fish is to be kept in ph a little more than 7." Hurray! Life suddenly got easy
Or "all fish kept in aquariums is really BW fishes. That's why you need aquarium salt".
Welcome to lfs in Norway... The same story all over the world it seems.

Fella wrote:I liked the bit where he said it would turn green.

What next? it would sprout legs and can-can in your tank?

Yes with a six foot neon tetra on drums!!! LOL

We need a new "smilie" - with a chorus line of DPs doing the can-can - and of course a Neon on drums! That would even top the wave

How funny, "all fish are BW" Oh dear!!!