I just got one from a friend...Anyone have any info on them that could help me keep him happy and healthy?
I don't know a whole lot about them but here's a site with the general info for keeping them alive. http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/Pu...
As with any puffers they have beaks or teeth and they need snails to keep them from over growing. Most likely he will only eat live food s and needs brackish water (water with salt added) when young and full salt water tank when older. As with any fish not over feeding and weekly water changes are the best things you can do for him. Best of luck.
As with any puffers they have beaks or teeth and they need snails to keep them from over growing. Most likely he will only eat live food s and needs brackish water (water with salt added) when young and full salt water tank when older. As with any fish not over feeding and weekly water changes are the best things you can do for him. Best of luck.
I had to look up this name, as it wasn't 1 I was familiar with. It seems this name can refer to more than 1 kind of puffer. The list using the scientific names of the possible puffers this could be is found in this website. http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/Pu... It's probably the golden puffer, but check the others to be sure.
You can use those names to find out about the care for the 1 you have in this website. http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/ug.p...
Yes, they have teeth, but the teeth are fused together. Here's the best picture I could find, it's of a different species, but you can see what they look like. http://www.flickr.com/photos/schaef_in_v... Their teeth are like a rodent's, they grow throughout the life of the fish, and the fish has to chew hard materials [snails are an excellent food for this, or live ghost shrimp in addition to other meaty foods] to keep them worn down.
I hope you had a tank already, because puffers don't do well in uncycled tanks. They're very sensitive to ammonia and nitrite in the water. You could use the filter media or some gravel from an established tank to seed bacteria into a tank for your puffer. And puffers are aggressive fish, so the only way you could keep him in a community tank is if you used a divider to keep him separated from the other fish. If you don't expect ripped fins, bite marks, or possibly dead fish.
You can use those names to find out about the care for the 1 you have in this website. http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/ug.p...
Yes, they have teeth, but the teeth are fused together. Here's the best picture I could find, it's of a different species, but you can see what they look like. http://www.flickr.com/photos/schaef_in_v... Their teeth are like a rodent's, they grow throughout the life of the fish, and the fish has to chew hard materials [snails are an excellent food for this, or live ghost shrimp in addition to other meaty foods] to keep them worn down.
I hope you had a tank already, because puffers don't do well in uncycled tanks. They're very sensitive to ammonia and nitrite in the water. You could use the filter media or some gravel from an established tank to seed bacteria into a tank for your puffer. And puffers are aggressive fish, so the only way you could keep him in a community tank is if you used a divider to keep him separated from the other fish. If you don't expect ripped fins, bite marks, or possibly dead fish.