If you haven't already, read the first part of the series here: Large Marine Pufferfish Care, Part One: Aquarium Housing and Filtration
Selection
It's easy to spot a healthy puffer - it will have bright eyes with no cloudiness, be actively swimming around and investigating it's surroundings (or begging for food!) and won't have any visible parasites. An unhealhy puffer, in contrast, may have cloudy or milky eyes, will not be active, and will likely be clamping its fins against its body.
Tankmates
Once your system (and it will be quite a system once you’re adequately prepared for long-term marine puffer care) is ready, you’ll probably want to consider suitable tankmates.
Remember, pufferfish consume mollusks and crustaceans in the wild, and are definitely not invert safe! with these animals! Large marine puffers are ideal candidates for fish-only aquariums, and should only be kept with fish of similar temperaments. Puffers can definitely be described as “obnoxious” and shouldn’t be kept with anything that has tempting appendages, or they will likely be happily chomped upon by puffer beaks (ie. lionfish, sharks, etc).
Puffers can make suitable tankmate finding challenging, but likely your puffers will be the stars of the show anyway. To their credit, puffers are not piscivores and will not chase down and eat small fishes. Other tough fishes that can share space with puffers are groupers, hawkfishes, triggerfishes, and larger wrasses. Always be wary of overloading the filtration capacity of the tank, however.
A note about Map puffers (A. mappa): don't attempt to keep more than one them in the same tank together - this will lead to the demise of one of them!
Feeding
In my experience, feeding is a grossly neglected topic when discussing captive pufferfish.
It helps to have some information on how puffers feed in the wild: in nature pufferfish are opportunistic predators, hanging out around rock shelves searching for snails, or actively searching the seafloor for anything buried (usually crabs, shrimp, or worms) so variety is key. Puffers are not piscivores, and usually do not consume fish of any type! Keep this, and the following in mind when feeding your pufferfish. Puffers require fresh, meaty seafoods in the shell (shrimp, prawns, crab legs, oysters, mussels, crayfish – all available at your local grocery) as a staple and to keep your puffer’s teeth worn down. Another good staple are the frozen Formula diets from Ocean Nutrition, as they contain a variety of seafoods, and also importantly, B vitamins (especially thiamin) as feeding shrimp and other crustaceans will cause dangerous thaimin deficiencies.
I offer freeze-dried foods (krill, plankton, prepared carnivore foods) a few times a week or when in a hurry. About once a week, don’t feed your puffer at all (don’t fall for the begging!) as it is not always good to feed big carnivorous fish every day.
Many puffers die from vitamin deficiencies or liver problems caused by improper diets and although this can take a few years, it will happen if they are not fed a variety of foods, and if fresh seafood and frozen food is not a staple.
As a final note, do not feed your puffer freshwater "feeder" fish – ever. This is a completely inappropriate food source for any marine animal, and can cause intestinal blockage leading to demise.
Questions? Please, ask away in the comments section!
Like this? Please bookmark via the social bookmarking buttons below, subscribe to our free RSS feed, and sign up for our free weekly newsletter! www.connectiondetailing.com
Comments