"dwarf Red Eye Sumatran Puffer"

[Ceramicbull]

I unfortunately didn't snap a picture when I was at the LFS (beginning to think I should always bring a camera with me), but I saw some puffers with the name "Dwarf Red Eye Sumatran Puffer" on the price tag. I suspect they're Carinotetraodon Irrubesco (the pictures look right). Since I don't have a picture, I guess I'm asking what ELSE it could be and if anyone else has heard of that common name for it before.

 

[nmonks]

Irrubesco puffers do indeed come from Sumatra. On the males at least, the combination of cream colour bands on a chocolate brown body, red tail, red yes, and an orange keel should be fairly distinctive. Females are mottled brown with irregular short brown stripes on their bellies.

There are some fairly similar species though. Review in particular Carinotetraodon borneensis, Carinotetraodon lorteti and Carinotetraodon salivator. Of the three, Carinotetraodon borneensis and Carinotetraodon salivator are rarely imported and very expensive, while male Carinotetraodon lorteti are more olive brown in body colour and has a blue-green tail.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Ceramicbull]

Thanks again Neale. I am *sorely* tempted to put one in the 29G which is slowly getting stocked, but I suspect they wouldn't behave with the current inhabitants: 8x each Harlequin Rasbora and Pacific Blue-eye, and 5x Brochis Splendens. Perhaps the blue eyes and mabye the rasboras would be able to outrun an Irrubesco, but I fear the Brochis (Brochii?) would have an awful time. I hear irrubesco hunt at night as well, when my blue eyes and harlequins seem to sleep at the surface...

So yeah, unless you know something I don't, not a fish for this tank.

 

[nmonks]

I have kept C. irrubesco with Corydoras, and not had any problems at all.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Ceramicbull]

I have kept C. irrubesco with Corydoras, and not had any problems at all.

Cheers, Neale

Really? I'm kind of amazed. I mean, we get the "I want a puffer I can keep in a community" post frequently, and they're really neat looking fish too. Other than perhaps scarcity, why is this fish not more popular?

I imagine if I were to try it, I would have to hope I got a friendly one, but the ones at the LFS are in a tank with Golden Wonder Killis and a large Gourami so perhaps they're decent. Assuming I get a decent citizen, do you think Harlequin Rasboras and the Pacific Blue Eyes would avoid being a midnight snack?

 

[nmonks]

I can't speak for every red-tail puffer out there, but mine have at various times lived with cardinals, whiptail catfish, Limia, halfbeaks and Corydoras. They don't strike me as particularly nippy or aggressive fish, and what aggression there is tends to be among one another. About the only interspecific aggression I've ever seen is where a female red-tail puffer would drive off a bleed heart tetra that got too close. She'd lunge towards the tetra a short distance, and once the tetra had swum away she went right back into her cave. She wasn't trying to bite the tetra's fins, so far as I could tell, and it looked exactly like a cichlid defending its hiding place.

So while I wouldn't recommend mixing them with slow-moving or long-finned fish, like fancy guppies for example, I think they're worth gambling with if kept alongside the usual barbs, loaches, tetras and catfish. Rasboras should be fine too. No idea about blue-eyes -- they are a bit small.

I will observe that I find red-tail puffers more outgoing in big tanks than small. When kept in a 15-20 gallon tank they seem to hide a lot. In the 44 gallon tank they swim about all day, right up to the surface.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Ceramicbull]

Well, if the Harlequins are worth a shot then the blue eyes ought to as well, they are about the same size, just more streamlined than the rasboras. They even school together, oddly enough.

Before I get ahead of myself, will a 29G with 8x each Harlequin and Blue Eye plus 5x Emerald Brochis have enough space? Marineland Penguin 200 enough filtration?

 

[nmonks]

Are these US gallons? Twenty-nine US gallons is a mere 24 Imperial gallons, and that wouldn't be my choice for C. irrubesco. And yes, with a school of rasboras, blue-eyes and Brochis in there, I wouldn't recommend adding any more fish.

I'm not wild about hang-on-the-back filters, especially ones that use proprietary modules. When keeping puffers you don't need to waste space in a filter with carbon or zeolite, so be sure to use a filter that provides plenty of good-quality biological filtration plus a fairly strong water current, at least 6 times the volume of the tank in turnover, and ideally 8 times.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Ceramicbull]

Not wild about the filter either, but it came with the tank so I've got little reason NOT to use it. There's space for additional filter material in the box itself, so perhaps some additional bio material in there might help? Perhaps a supplimental over the back filter? Or is it just time to get a canister?

To clarify, when you say "wouldn't add more fish" do you mean "1 puffer and that's it" or "there is no room for the puffer"? Since you used "with" I suspect you mean the latter, but I am uncertain.

Also, by Imperial Gallons, do you mean Commonwealth Gallons? To be Imperial they would have to be defined by an Empire...

 

[nmonks]

I mean "no room for the puffer", in my opinion. It might live in there, but my hunch would be it'd hide all the time.

Can't speak to why Imperial gallons are called Imperial gallons, but they are. You may be right though, and maybe the Australians call 'em something else.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Ceramicbull]

Thanks for the honesty, perhaps another time with a bigger tank. In the long run I hope to move the freshwater community to a larger tank and repurpose the 29G for a nano-reef. If I get the job I am hoping to get, I might actually have enough money to sustain an excursion into the marine side of the hobby.