Just Read This About Target Puffers! Bizarre Advice

[simonas]

The Target Puffer requires a diet high in crustaceans, as well as other meaty foods such as shrimp, snails, tubifex worms, and earthworms. The teeth of a Target Puffer are constantly growing, so it is important that it receives foods with a hard exoskeleton in order to keep its teeth from overgrowing.

Ideal tank mates include:

Puffers
Barbs
Gouramis
South American Dwarf Cichlids (such as Rams and Apistogrammas)
Sharks
Rainbowfish
Loaches
Plecos
Scavenger Catfish

I have two of these and from experience with the you cannot put other fish in!! I put ten black widow ettras in to bring them out of their shell and when I returned an hour later 8 were bitten in half!!! these fish are soo aggressive!!

anybody else keep them

 

[mr.dark-saint]

So what's the question?

Most puffers in LFS that house them together would have bite marks from sampling their either slow or not paying attention inmates. Does their teeth keep growing? Yes. Do they need shelled critters to snack on like clams and snails? It's what they eat out in the wild so yes.

 

[jayjay]

Ideal tank mates include:

Puffers
Barbs
Gouramis
South American Dwarf Cichlids (such as Rams and Apistogrammas)
Sharks
Rainbowfish
Loaches
Plecos
Scavenger Catfish

That would seem to be the problem.

 

[Fella]

The Target Puffer requires a diet high in crustaceans, as well as other meaty foods such as shrimp, snails, tubifex worms, and earthworms. The teeth of a Target Puffer are constantly growing, so it is important that it receives foods with a hard exoskeleton in order to keep its teeth from overgrowing.

Ideal tank mates include:

Puffers
Barbs
Gouramis
South American Dwarf Cichlids (such as Rams and Apistogrammas)
Sharks
Rainbowfish
Loaches
Plecos
Scavenger Catfish

I have two of these and from experience with the you cannot put other fish in!! I put ten black widow ettras in to bring them out of their shell and when I returned an hour later 8 were bitten in half!!! these fish are soo aggressive!!

anybody else keep them

I Keep a target puffer and I wouldn't keep anything with it, not even armoured plecs, quick swimming tetras, halfbeaks etc, because it's just so aggressive. It attacks my hands when they're near to the tank.

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX6y-TFReG4

Here is a video of it feeding. You can witness how aggressive it is.

 

[nmonks]

I would tend to agree with Fella. The only two freshwater puffers that I would consider mixing with other species are the South American puffer and the red-tail puffer, but in both those cases there are risks, and certain types of fish don't mix with them at all. Otherwise, I'd treat puffers as essentially single-specimen fish for their own aquarium.

I believe that more than one species has been sold as "target puffer", but I could be wrong.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Fella]

I would tend to agree with Fella. The only two freshwater puffers that I would consider mixing with other species are the South American puffer and the red-tail puffer, but in both those cases there are risks, and certain types of fish don't mix with them at all. Otherwise, I'd treat puffers as essentially single-specimen fish for their own aquarium.

I believe that more than one species has been sold as "target puffer", but I could be wrong.

Cheers,

Neale

Spot on. There are at least 2 species currently traded under the term "target puffer". Tetraodon Turgidus, and Tetraodon cochinchinensis. I keep the latter, and they're difficult fish to ID, also being confused with Tetraodon abei.

They need very similar requirements, tanks of around 15g, no tankmates whatsoever, neutral-ish PH, and meaty foods.

I would not say mixing a lot of puffers is impossible, but it's certainly tricky. This is one to not attempt to mix with anything however.

 

[simonas]

So what's the question?

I was sharing the bizarre advice I'd found and I asked if anyone else kept one?

I Keep a target puffer and I wouldn't keep anything with it, not even armoured plecs, quick swimming tetras, halfbeaks etc, because it's just so aggressive. It attacks my hands when they're near to the tank.

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX6y-TFReG4

Here is a video of it feeding. You can witness how aggressive it is.

Yours is the same as mine. cracking fish. where do you get the cockles from? I feed mussels and prawns