![]() ![]() As your puffer gets larger, there are many more crunchy foods for them to eat. Many serious puffer keepers breed their own snails. Snails are an essential food to a Puffer’s diet, especially when small. Foods for smaller puffers are frozen/freeze-dried krill/plankton, gut-loaded ghost shrimp, glass worms, crickets, worms and small snails (the size of their eye). Like rabbits, their teeth grow constantly and can overgrow enough to cause starvation in the fish. All puffers are predatory fish and need hard-shelled, meaty foods to keep their teeth trimmed. One of the most difficult aspects of keeping these special fish is their diet. I quarantine all new fish so I don’t have to treat the whole tank and to prevent spreading possible diseases. I also like to add Melafix to the water to help with re-growth. Getting them into brackish water as soon as possible is one way to help with that. Most have nipped fins when received some are even missing fins. Puffers get pretty beat up during shipping and over crowding. You must soak their food in it and treat for 7 days. I prefer the product Discomed, by Aquatronics, for the treatment of internal parasites. ![]() If your Puffer eats, but still looks thin, or has stringy-looking feces, it could be carrying internal parasites. Puffers are wild-caught fish and many come in with internal parasites. Keep in mind that in tanks this small, puffers will not be tolerant of tank mates. You can start a young one out in a 10-15g tank, but once it is >2” they need a 20-30g tank/fish. When choosing your long-lived pet (10+ years), try to find one with a round belly that comes to greet you at the glass. Water changes, water changes, water changes! The best way to keep them healthy is not to let them get sick. Therefore, these fish are very sensitive to most meds and this is why keeping perfect water conditions are so important for them. Puffers are scaleless fish and are without gill covers. I do 50% weekly water changes on all my tanks, vacuuming under décor and getting into plants to remove all uneaten food as I go. This means 0 ammonia, 0 nitrIte and nitrAtes below 20. Perfect water parameters are necessary for Puffers. They just can’t tell the hermit crabs are there. Only after my puffers were raised to saltwater, was I able to “trick” them into letting me keep hermit crabs with them by scattering many empty shells around the substrate. (Sorry, you’ll have to do your own maid service!) Because of their aggressiveness towards tank mates and the high amount of salt they prefer, there are not many fish that can live with them as companions in general, or for clean up. There are no brackish water algae eaters that can live with a Green Spotted Puffer. Algae growth also needs to be removed by the fish keeper. Extra filtration is necessary for these dirty fish. Puffers are messy eaters and high waste producers. Usually the only way is by dissection, or if they happen to lay eggs (an unlikely occurrence). Gender : Even for experts, it is nearly impossible to sex them. When larger (about 4″ or so): all the above, and also clams, mussels, squid, scallops, shrimp, crab legs, oysters, lobster, and crayfish. Some possible companions are: mollies, scats, monos, archerfish, bumblebee gobies, and other GSPs.įish Disease : Freshwater Fish Disease – Diagnose, Symptoms and Treatment – Be sure to quarantine, as they are wild caught and often come in with parasites.įish Food : When young their diet consists of snails, brine shrimp, plankton, Krill, crickets, cockles, prawns, whitebait, worms, ghost shrimp. Tank Mates : Must be chosen with caution. ![]() Temperament / Behavior : aggressive fin-nippersīreeding : practically non-existent in captivityĪquarium Size : Minimum of 30 gallons (113.5 L) Origin / Habitat : brackish rivers and estuaries of Borneo and Sumatra Lifespan : to 10 years, sometimes as much as 15 ![]() Specific Gravity : adaptable, from low-end brackish (1.005) up to low-end saltwater (1.20) ![]()
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