red eye puffers

[linalupin]

i have recently been to my local lfs and they had red eye puffers in stock, they told me that these fish dont need brackish tanks and will live happily among community fish in a regular tropical set up, can any ont tell me if this is true? ive been caught out before when buying fish from the same shop so wanted to check up first.... these puffers are about 1 inch in length and i also wanted to know how big they grow to and what is best to house them with.... thanks

 

[jimw13uk]

Dont know about the freshwater but everything I've ever been told byt people i trust (this forum and others) is that Puffers are an absolute no-no with anything else cos they are killers.

I have always wanted one and am having to set up another tank to get one eventually

 

[jflowers]

Red eye is usually the common name for c. lorteti and they are FW not brackish. They will live happily with community fish, its the community fish that will be unhappy, fin nipped, then dead. Try to get the scientific name to be sure, but brackish or not, they are not community fish, IMO no puffer is.

Jon

 

[linalupin]

ive just found puffers the same on http/www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/puf-irrub.htm

 

[chris_1127]

irrubescos are still freshwater, v similar to appearance to lortetis and also sexually dimorphic, except irrubesco males will have a red caudal fin (as opposed to lortetis with just a thin vertical line of red at the base of the fin), and females will have unbroken short bars on the belly; as opposed to lorteti females which have a more "dotted" belly. Both freshwater, both grow to about 5cm, irrubescos slightly smaller than lortetis. i wouldnt let my lortetis loose in my community tank - i currently house them with dp's, otos and rubbernose plecs. the male lorteti doesnt tolerate the female within eyesight, so the tank is well planted. he is also very quick when he does have a pop at her.
From what i understand irrubescos are more mild-mannered than lortetis, but i still dont think i'd risk it unless i was willing to lose fish...

 

[Puffer_freak]

Irubesco is aka the dragon puffer - I think... - and is freshwater. No puffers should be kept in community tanks, unless you want a dead tank...

5 cm - can't remember the size they get to, but I think that;s abut right, in which case, they'll grow to about 2". Don't be fooled by their small size. Puffers have teeth which are very effective, its been known that people have had their fingers taken off by larger puffers before!

 

[chris_1127]

dont think that the irrubesco is the dragon puffer is it? thought the dragon was the hump-backed, c. palembengensis? i know common names are misleading, but i thought c. irrubesco were red-tailed redeye puffers, as opposed to plain ole red-eye puffers (c. lorteti)

 

[jflowers]

Lots of sites refer to palembengensis as dragon puffers. However here in the UK (don't know where you are), most lfs call puffers whatever they feel like when they write there lables.

I have one near me that uses scientific names, the others make them up. The red eyes I bought were labled red bellies, the SAP's I bought were labled Brazillian puffers (makes sense I suppose). Bottom line, know your puffers before you buy. When I bought my first (SAP's), I had no idea, the lfs just said "don't keep with long finned fish", they should have left out the fourth and fifth word

Jon

 

[SirMinion]

dont think that the irrubesco is the dragon puffer is it? thought the dragon was the hump-backed, c. palembengensis? i know common names are misleading, but i thought c. irrubesco were red-tailed redeye puffers, as opposed to plain ole red-eye puffers (c. lorteti)

Absolutely correct. (except it's tetraodon palembangensis not carinotetraodon palembangensis)

You don't want to end up with an eight-inch Dragon when you're ecpecting a three inch redeye!

Also, this thread is clearly in the wrong place as none of the three species mentioned on this thread are brackish!

 

[Bear6360]

Also, this thread is clearly in the wrong place as none of the three species mentioned on this thread are brackish!

I noticed the same thing, but I wouldn't know where else to post a FW puffer question.

Instead of starting a new thread, I'll just use this one. I have a lorteti. She is very aggressive (as everyone already knows). I keep her in a 6 gallon acrylic tank (at work) with rocks, java moss, and some leafy plants I "borrowed" from the cafeteria. My problem is: algae!!! The light is only on for about 7 hours per day (on a timer). What can I keep with my lorteti (I call her little Theresa - little T for short) to keep the glass a little cleaner. The about all of it is that my aquarium is a bowfront. Scraping algae takes forever since my scraper is flat (not round). Also, acrylic scratches too easily. I think a sucker fish is my best bet, but what won't she kill? ...and don't even say snails.

Thanks!!!

 

[chris_1127]

i wouldnt suggest any in a 6g tank tbh. Although they arent very active, theyre still heavy waste producers - personally i wouldn't keep one in less than a 10g on its own. Tankmates seem to be pot luck with red-eyes - mine still live peacefully enough with rubbernose plecs, dwarf puffers and oto's but its a heavily planted tank and is 25g. it also runs two internal filters and has 1/3 water changes per week. On the other hand i did read on another forum that someone tried dwarfs with red-eyes and they didnt last the night.

Is the algae a green slimy blanket over everything? this could be cyanobacter/blue-green algae, i had a problem with this and only cured by blacking out the lights for several days and treating with antibiotics. It may on the other hand be from excessive nitrates from the heavy bioload of the fish in a 6g tank.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

could also be the "leafy plants" from the cafeteria. unless you stole them out of an aquarium, odds are good that those plants are purely terrestrial. and if your plants aren't biologically inclined to live their whole lives underwater, they are going to sicken and rot away.

try purchasing some true aquatic plants from an LFS. duckweed, hornwort, and apongetons are all easy to keep and will readily out-compete most forms of algae. (warning: duckweed is almost impossible to eradicate once introduced, so don't put it in if you aren't sure you'll still want it later!)

 

[Bear6360]

Thanks for the tips.

The algae is slimy and green mostly. Some of it is brown, though. Most of it is on the glass (acrylic). There is some brown residue of some sort on the rocks; the large rocks, not the gravel.

There are three of the "borrowed" plants in question in the aquarium. Two of them are free floating (they became uprooted), and one is planted. The planted plant looks like a million bucks. The other two appear to be rotting. They have long strands of brown residue on them. I am not sure what exactly it is on the leaves, though. Now that you mention it, though, they are probably rotting. What I don't understand is why the planted one would not rot, but the rest would. That doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

I will remove the uprooted plants from the aquarium and see how/if things change.

One thing I will note is that I have java moss in almost all of my aquariums. In all of them, it is a brownish color, but in my 6 gallon with the puffer, the java moss is greener than I have ever seen it. Would that indicate a higher level of something in my water?

One more thing to throw in since I just thought of it.

Little T also appears to be rubbing her sides on the rocks and glass and heater and anything else she gets near. She doesn't do it all the time, though. Is she itchy? I've never witnessed this sort of behavior in fish before. It's quite odd. Perhaps it is an indication of a problem with the water.

She seems quite healthy, otherwise. She devours the live snails and krill I feed her vividly. Also, she swims around quite a bit. She's always on the prowl, hunting for more snails.

 

[Bear6360]

OK. I just yoinked the two uprooted plants. The one looked terrible, so I tossed it. The other one was in pretty good condition. I cleaned all the brown stuff off the plant. It (the brown stuff) appeared to be attached although the leaves it was attached to did not appear rotted at all. After I cleaned off all the brown stuff, I put that plant back in the water. I rooted it, though, so it is completely submerged.

I used to have a bonzai tree, and I know plants will grow mold and/or fungi on them if they are watered too much. I wonder if the same thing was happening here. The reason the rooted plant would not have the same problem is because it is not receiving high levels of oxygen that the floating plants were receiving. I will keep it this way for a few days to see if the newly rooted plant forms any of this weird brown fuzz like growths on it.

I still need to do a water change and scrape the glass. I'll let all of you know how things turn out.

If you have any comments or opinions, please offer. I am an extreme fish enthusiast, and I enjoy learning as much as I can about the hobby.

One last quick note, now that I think about it (this happens to me all the time ), I did not start having these problems until those plants became uprooted.

If I still have algae problems, I will get an Oto and a long piece of PVC large enough for him, but too small for Little T to attack him...for sanctuary.

 

[Dangerousdan]

I have 2 j dg dgfxs