The Puffer Forum

Looking for opinions...or facts...

Thinking of putting a hamster tube or 2 in the tank for puffer to have fun in....and swim around in and check out.
cuz I know they like to explore and go into holes and stuff......

any thoughts???

I'd not trust any plastic to 100% safe in brackish water unless it explicitly says so. Salty water is quite corrosive and damaging. There are various funky hollow ornaments designed for fish tanks, and any one of these might be better. As an FYI, wild puffers don't tend to swim into solid object like caves. Rather, they swim up and across vertical objects and over complex habitats. If you wanted something to stimulate a puffer, then I'd be looking at: tall plastic plants (the seaweed type would be ideal), seashells, barnacle clusters, fake corals, etc. A very authentic brackish water tank addition is a bunch of oyster shells (from your grocery store, eat the oysters first!) siliconed together to create a reef. From personal experience I can tell you oyster reefs are PRIME pufferfish habitat. They pick off the small snails and shrimps living among the oysters, so it would be fun to "hide" food items in the reef each time, so that the puffers would have to hunt for their dinner. Of course, you'd need to make sure uneaten food is removed (as if uneaten food is a problem in a pufferfish tank, but still...).

Cheers, Neale

Actually, I do know of several folks that have done that for their F8s. I haven't heard back from them about any problems with the plastic.

I have seen plastic resin floating logs for sale, that would be more natural methinks

I made a rock tunnel. They won't play in it per say, they merely swim through it coincidently. You'll have more fun with them swimming in it then they do

thanks guys! great insight