puffers
- Thread starter Starfish
- Start date
no they are not dwarf puffers they are are columbian striped puffers and they get around six inches i think. Just to let everyone know starfish is my girlfriend.
OK, the 'columbian' name threw me off for a moment since there are no FW puffers in Columbia. These are Colomesus asellus from Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela, and Peru. This is a freshwater species that is occassionally found in light brackish water. They're reported to grow to 5.5" but, typically are seen to 3.5". The species is relatively peaceful towards conspecifics. They can be fed on live & frozen blackworm/bloodworm, snails, krill, shrimp, and small crayfish. The only downside to this species is that they're prone to overgrown teeth that require trimming about every 6 weeks. Feeding them lots of shelled foods will alleviate having to trim their teeth by hand.
I have kept one of these in my community tank for a t least a year now, is the most gentle puffer i have ever kept, doesnt bother any of the other fish, only bothers snails. Everyone always mentions that these puffers need teeth trimming even with snails and other crunchy food in their diet, mine is just now starting to look like it will need a trim. Mine eats lots of snails. every now and then i got to the LFS and they let me take all the pests snails out of their tanks, then i just throw them all in and he has stuff to hunt for a few weeks. the only other crunchy thing he eats is cihclid pellets, he also eats flake food, blackworms and mysis shrimp, but those don't help his teeth at all. Great fish, my wife picked him out and loves him.
Sorry for bumping the old thread, but just wanted to add that you could also buy some clams from the grocery (shell is thinner than cockles and such), crush them with a hammer, and drop the crushed shells in the tank. The puffer will still file his teeths by scraping the meat off the bits of shell.
Hope this helps!
Hope this helps!
SAP's are one of the puffers whose tooth growth seems to be relentless whilst others dont suffer at all from excessive tooth growth. The more hard shelled foods you can get him to eat the better however at some point you might have to prepare yourself to do some puffer dentistry as no matter how many shells they go through some still end up with overgrown teeth.
C. asellus is the "jeff" of www.jeffthefish.com. I used to have a dentist friend who came to my house once or twice to trim his teeth. I tried doing it myself, but it freaked me out. I was WAY too nervous. It's also really stressful on the fish, though I think he can handle it. But even in the jeffthefish logo, you can see his teeth are too long.
