Question about Fahaka Puffer

[Joel]

I've been looking around and have become deeply fascinated by the Fahaka Puffer. I just have 1 question, what tank size do they need at the least?

Forgive me if this has already been asked

Thanks

- Joel

 

[Clare]

I presume from your post that you have researched this puffer already and know that it must be kept alone and is very aggresive.
Ours is in a tank 5x2x2 and would not recommend anything less than that size as he is very active and puffers are very messy so it is important to keep the water good.
A great fish to watch, lovely markings and you will no doubt of heard all the funny tales from Sir and Lady Minion about Martha.
It has been said that they need live food but this is not the case, Gomez, along with Martha happily takes prawn, cockle, mussel, whelk etc.
Teeth can easily be kept down with Clams or cockles in the shell and Lady and Sir MInion give Martha the occasional crab, although Gomez has no live food at all.

Good luck if you do decide to get one and if you need any more help just ask.
Gomez is around 13" and hasn`t grown lately so there is conflicting evidence to say what size they reach.
Clare

 

[Joel]

Thanks

yeah, I read up on them and I saw how terretorial they are, so I was planning on just having 1 tank for themselves. How big would 5X2X2 be in U.S. Gallons?

Thankyou very much for the help

 

[Fishy411]

i think you need at least a 125 gallon tank. paul has a thread about how he set up his tank for cookie the fahaka

 

[Joel]

Ok thanks

 

[SirMinion]

Just to clarify, that's a 5x2x2 tank for ONE fahaka puffer.

We are lucky that Martha is unusually docile and we are able to keep a couple of plecs and a large bichir with her, but it's not something I'd recommend for 99% of fahakas.

Clare - Martha dosen't get live crabs any more, we made the mistake of buying a 'stock' of them and keeping them in a small tank until Martha was ready for them... then we got attatched to them and can't face letting Martha eat our 'ikkle cwabbies'

 

[Joel]

I cannot begin on telling you how beautiful martha is! I want to have a Puffer just like her I might just get myself a Fahaka sometime soon

 

[Paul_MTS]

i think you need at least a 125 gallon tank. paul has a thread about how he set up his tank for cookie the fahaka

4x2x2 is the very very bare mininum and will have to watch cookie closely when bigger to see if he needs a bigger tank, at the time space was a bit of an issue though.

Bare in mind mine is extremenly heavily filtered. It has about 30-40ltrs(half of that being biological) of media and run by a Titan 3000 pond pump, which I may upgrade at some point as I'm not entirely happy with the flow produced.

 

[Clare]

Oops, sorry SirMinion, didn`t mean to offend you on the crabs. Do you think fish need live food of any dort?
Other than bloodworms and Daphnia we don`t feed any live food.
Got the 9ft x 3ft6 tanks and 8 x 3ft 6 tank set up and starte moving the fish, you should see the red tail and the nigers, they love it!! Soon to move Hamish into his 9ft tank, been a big job!!
Clare

 

[SirMinion]

No no! no offence taken!
We still feed live bloodworm, shrimp, snails, mealworms, crickets and locusts, but not crabs anymore and we've never routinely used feederfish.

I'd be interested to see a video of you moving Hamish after the trouble we had with Cookie yesterday!

 

[Clare]

mmmm, need a very big bag. We have actually been getting him used to being handled and he readily lets you stroke his back and guide him where you want him ti go, ie. into a bag. So it shouldn`t be THAT bad.
Wrestling with our 2ft Red Tail was the worst, their tails are so strong.
We ffed the same live foods as you and have also never used feeders.
Clare