South American Puffers

[newtotropical]

Hi all,
We went out with the intention of buying 2 Dwarf Puffers & ended up buying 2 South American Puffers!
Im setting up a new tank for them now!
They are feeding well on Bloodworm and are only 1" at the moment.

Any advice that you can offer on these beauts would be great!!!

 

[seffieuk]

their beaks grow at an alarming rate and need to be trimmed Some people have had success with feeding them on a slate rock so that every time they feed they wear their beak down a bit - but it is essential they have foods such as snails, cockles etc to help keep their beaks from over-growing and eventually starving the poor puffer to death. I'm sure someone will be along soon who knows more..... good luck, they are sweet puffers - can we have a picture?

all the best

 

[RadaR]

Indeed, their beaks grow incredibly quick. We feed our ones at work snails, cuttle shell, anything to keep them down. Sometimes it is quite worrying. We also feed bloodworms and other frozen foods. They are not mean to each other at all. Experiences from others may differ, im not sure.

 

[mlawson]

I'll emphasize the last two posts, South American puffers are renowned for their fast 'beak' growths, so as mentioned before make sure to include lots of hard food in their diet to wear their teeth down. Apart from this they make good pets, they are commonly regarded as the most community friendly puffer there is. They don't tend to be as aggressive and be such fin nippers as other puffers. What tank are they in at the moment? They still do possess the need for perfect water quality as do all other puffers, so be sure to keep water quality good with regular maintenance. They arer better than dwarf puffers IMO, DP's have the benefit of being small and only require small tanks, but you can keep a larger group of South American puffers relative to tank size then you can with DP's. Just remember they will grow a lot larger than DP's and so will require a larger tank.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[DarkEntity]

Hi all,
We went out with the intention of buying 2 Dwarf Puffers & ended up buying 2 South American Puffers!
Im setting up a new tank for them now!
They are feeding well on Bloodworm and are only 1" at the moment.

Any advice that you can offer on these beauts would be great!!!

If this is your first ever Puffer then id say it probably wasnt the best choice you could have made. They are one of the least aggressive (as Puffers go) but with dental work, id have went for something else tbh.

There are people on here and "The Puffer Forum" with years of Puffer experience that still have a real trauma when knocking their SAP's out to file their teeth.

On top of that a 65Litre tank isnt large enough for 2 X SAP's, 1 yes at a push.

 

[newtotropical]

Hi all,
We went out with the intention of buying 2 Dwarf Puffers & ended up buying 2 South American Puffers!
Im setting up a new tank for them now!
They are feeding well on Bloodworm and are only 1" at the moment.

Any advice that you can offer on these beauts would be great!!!

If this is your first ever Puffer then id say it probably wasnt the best choice you could have made. They are one of the least aggressive (as Puffers go) but with dental work, id have went for something else tbh.

There are people on here and "The Puffer Forum" with years of Puffer experience that still have a real trauma when knocking their SAP's out to file their teeth.

On top of that a 65Litre tank isnt large enough for 2 X SAP's, 1 yes at a push.

All advise ive been given says that 2 would be ok??

 

[DarkEntity]

65 Litres is 14 Imperial Gallons.

subtract from that Gravel/sand/plants/filter/heater/other decor....you have about 10 Gallons left for 2 very active fish....not enough space imo.

 

[nmonks]

I'm going to chime in here and agree with some of the above posts. SAPs need a lot of swiming space. My two live in a 180 litre tank, and they sometimes bomb up and down the thing like angry wasps. They really like a lot of empty swimming space and strong water currents. Couldn't care less about ornaments and caves, but they do like floating plants and sometimes rooting about in the sand.

As for the teeth. I've experienced two aspects of this. In sandy-substrate tanks with lots of Malayan livebearing snails, beak growth was virtually nill. I assume they eat the baby snails they find in the sand, and shorten their teeth that way. Remove the sand and the snails, and you can almost see their teeth growing.

If kept alone, you can probably avoid teeth-clipping using snails as 50% of the diet. In a mixed community, the SAPs will nip the fins of other fish (an easy meal) before they eat the snails (a difficult meal).

Trimming the teeth isn't a huge deal. You sedate the fish first, and then use cuticle clippers. It's difficult with very small fish, easier with bigger ones. The main problem isn't harming the fish at this stage, but making sure it is returned to the aquarium gently and settled down before you let it out the net. If they go bananas, they can bump themselves, and sometimes the bruises seem to be internal bleeding and the puffer dies. These are very highly strung animals.

Cheers, Neale