Tips
& Tricks 
Puffer Fish Lair
One of the most important things: Though you may want to try to match the water conditions in your tank to the puffer's natural habitat, be careful. Products and methods used to lower pH or hardness may leave your tank in an unstable condition, and a pH crash may occur. pH crashes can kill your fish. It is a good idea to acclimate the fish to your water, then the system is stable. The only reason you may need or want to do major changes to the water parameters is if you want simulate breeding conditions, or your source water is so extremely different that it is a problem. If the fish has been at your LFS, it is likely the fish is now used to the local source water anyway. A sudden change to the parameters you believe they would experience in the wild just might kill in the limited space of a tank.
• Transporting puffer fish: These guys can bite through the bags the fish stores use. Buy a small igloo container (cooler, like for drinks when you are on a camping trip). I got one that is for drinking out of, it is about a half gallon and is round. I place the fish in this to transport with no leaks. Of course, you can't put two puffers that will fight in the same container, so if you are buying more than one at a time, get several containers.
• Transporting for a long distance: Use a battery powered aerator. You can usually buy these devices at a bait shop for fishermen. They are commonly used to keep live fish bait alive on a fishing trip. A cooler will keep the temperature of the water higher than an exposed bag. I have used a larger cooler for community fish, it worked out quite well. Back to Top
• Aragonite & Crushed Coral: If you have a nice substrate that the aragonite/coral will not look good with, consider placing the aragonite in mesh bags like what is sold for media a canister filter uses. Then you can place the bag in the back of a hanging filter, or inside of a canister filter. This media helps keep your buffering capacity up so you have a steady pH. Back to Top
• Catching your puffer fish: Try to use a container that you can submerge in the tank, then chase the puffer inside. Bring the container up with water in it. This will help prevent the puffer from puffing up with air. Netting can be very traumatic for these guys, and they can die from puffing with air. Have a cover nearby just in case, some puffers flip their tail fins around fiercely when in a container and you get pretty wet! Back to Top
• Checking your puffers out: There are magnifying glasses sold with a light mounted in the handle. Not only can I see them better in the tank (if they hold still long enough!), but I can also take it with me to the store & examine the fish there. You can see things like worms and larger parasites on the gills and other things you might not notice right away. This can help prevent purchase of a dying fish. Back to Top
• Quarantine your new puffers. As most are wild caught, I can't stress the importance enough. 4 to 6 weeks is recommended. Back to Top
• Buy these test kits: Ammonia, Nitrite, pH (high & low range), Nitrate, Hardness. Make sure if you have a brackish tank that you have a salinity meter and your test kits are compatible with salts. Your puffers need you to monitor their water carefully. Back to Top
• Settling in: If your puffer is hiding in a cave all the time after being acclimated for at least a month, try incandescent light instead of fluorescent. Puffer's eyes are light sensitive and some species prefer a lower intensity. They do have a pigmentation in their eyes that acts as a sort of "sunglasses" but some can still be pretty uncomfortable in bright light. The other option is to provide plants that bend over the top of the tank to act as shade. Back to Top
• Picky Eaters: Most fresh water and brackish puffers are wild caught, unfortunately. So they can take some time to adjust to eating in a tank situation. If there is a food they will eat, offer that preferred food until they get used to you being the "hand of food". Once they hurry to the top of the tank for feeding time, introducing new foods can be easier. Some of my once picky eaters now will taste anything I put in there, but it doesn't guarantee they don't spit it right back out! At that point I consider it a taste preference. See "Raid the Fridge" for more food ideas and information. Back to Top
• Heaters: A lot of puffers seem to have a love affair with their heater. They can get burned. Using a heater cover is recommended, as well as angling the heater diagonally, or upright if possible with more than puffer height clearance underneath. The cover may also prevent a heater from being broken by a frenzied puffer, though from what I understand, it is of little good with a larger puffer like a 12" Fahaka. Back to Top
• The filter strainer: This is the other love affair. For some reason, puffers just love to squeeze behind the strainer basket. Every single one of mine does it. Worried about them hurting themselves or getting stuck, I have been trying to come up with a plan. The only good idea I've had so far is to make a Plexiglas or acrylic box with holes for water flow to place over it and seal against the wall. Not the best solution, but maybe I will come up with a better idea. Some foam filters for units like AquaClear will fit over the end of the basket, this has been successful for pre-filtering and making the filters in the unit last longer. It also could be useful as a guard against injury. Back to Top
• Cover your tank. Puffers leap out and die. Other household pets or small children are at risk of poisoning if a puffer is out of the tank and within reach. Even the hole for a heater or UGF tube are large enough for a puffer to hop through. Also mountain goat cats on top of the tank won't be able to fish out a puffer, or suffer a nasty bite. Back to Top
• Heavy Filtration: Have oversized filtration on your tank. An under gravel filter (UGF) by itself will not be enough. My tanks are running with Penguin over the back filters (and one Fluval). Other people have more success with canister filters (my cats chew on the tubing, I have to make major cat deflectors to use these). Some folks have elaborate secondary tanks with plants for extra water capacity and filtration. These fish are messy feeders and need extra filtration. They also have not developed the ability to breathe air from the surface. This is a critical investment. If you have the over the back style filtration, the bio-wheel type is really practical, and the cartridges in the basket can be rinsed ion the water change bucket to remove food particles. There is also usually room enough for extra media like a bag of aragonite or ceramic tubes . Back to Top
• Don't cycle your new tank with a puffer. They are too sensitive, and loss of the fish is almost guaranteed unless water changes (to prevent the ammonia spike from being too high) are performed every few days. This will also slow down considerably the time it takes to cycle the tank. It is far easier to cycle the tank before getting the puffer, or while it is in quarantine. Snails have been used successfully to cycle a tank. Larger apple snails or ramshorns will produce enough waste to make the cycle happen. Back to Top
• Do your research: Before you get your new puffer, try to find out what species it is, and check out Ian West's site or Puffergirl's site to find out how the tank should be set up to make it comfortable. Also, always ask the store for the parameters of their tank. Try to match your tank as closely to the store's water conditions for less shock. Then gradually change the water conditions you have researched if necessary. Remember that most changes in a tank should be done gradually as most of the parameters will cause shock or death to the fish if changed too quickly. Back to Top
• Sharing a Tank: If you must introduce a puffer to a tank with other inhabitants, try to make sure that the puffer is the last fish added. This gives the less aggressive fish a chance to establish territory and can sometimes help maintain peace in the tank. Some puffers will never be able to be kept with other fish, not even other puffers. Some puffers eat fish as the main part of their diet, like the T. mirius, T. suvattii, T. duboisi species, and should not be kept with fish not intended for them to eat. If you are adding a new puffer to a tank with an established puffer, rearranging the tank can help ease the transition. Also, decoration and plants that break up the line of sight within the tank help them establish new territories and can lessen the chances of attack. Know that at any time a puffer may have to be removed to a separate tank, or that a puffer may kill other inhabitants in their tank. Back to Top
• Breeding: If you are interested in breeding puffers, there are a number of things to keep in mind.
• Many species will kill another of their own species.
• Also, certain requirements must be met for some species to breed. Water quality, vegetation, black water, etc.
• I have a growing suspicion that many of the brackish species may require either freshwater or full marine salinity to successfully produce fry. There are a number of fish out there that live and breed in freshwater as adults, but their fry travel out to the ocean to develop. Also, some species must breed in the ocean to ensure proper fertilisation (catadromous). And some may be anadromous as well, like the salmon. We just are not sure about so many of these species, so little research has been done. If you entertain the thought of breeding a species that no one has had success with, I would recommend setting up a number of tanks with a number of variables of FW to marine water, dense vegetation vs. sparse, sand vs. gravel, high circulation/current, very little current, higher and lower temperatures, and be prepared to wait long periods of time to bring pH levels up and down within a reasonable amount of time to not damage your fish. Having these types of variables available may present you with a successful clutch. Back to Top