anyone heard of a Fuku/Fugu puffer

[simonas]

There is one in my lfs and its gorgeous with a red mark on its head!! £25... I'm settig up a puffer tank soon anyway for brackish species. Could you give any advise on these or should I just start with the green and figure of 8's ininstead

 

[jimw13uk]

Fugu Puffer - Takifugu rubripes .

this may be intersting reading - http/puffernet.tripod.com/rubripes.html

 

[CFC]

The fugu puffer is the poison puffer fish that is a delicasy in Japan and is as far as i know a marine fish which breeds in brackish waters. The scientific name is Takifugu rubripes and the description you have given fits the fish

 

[SirMinion]

It's also worth mentioning that no-one, not even highly experianced pufferkeepers like Klaus Ebert, have been able to keep any takifugu species alive in captivity for more than five or so months, which when you consider that this fish has a 15 year lifepan in the wild, is a terrible waste of life.

Steer well clear

 

[simonas]

That most certainly is the one. The photo on the link shows the head markings. Thats a shame because it was strikingly beautiful!! But I agree with Sir Minnion it is a waste of life and shouldn't be offered for sale.

Oh well I shall read links on here and plan what puffers to keep. I've been given a spare 36 inch tank and intend to keep brackish water any ideas

 

[simonas]

why has my signature been removed? Do you want me to List the tanks and which fish are in them? I was just copying what Sir Minion has in his but of course if that is wrong then I'll change it

 

[CFC]

signature rules http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=91355


A standard 36" tank is roughly around 30 gallons in volume and so offers you quite a bit of scope for stocking a brackish set up. With that tank you could keep 2 figure 8 puffers, brackish gobies with a maximum size of about 6 inches, flounders, glass fish (Chanda species) and various other brackish oddballs in varying combinations and numbers.
A nice set up would be 4 knight gobies, 2 figure eight puffers, 6 glass fish and 2 flounders.

 

[chris_1127]

i'd go with the above - sounds like an interesting tank. i have a pair of figure 8's, two knight gobies, 2 candy stripe gobies and a mix of doriae and xanthozona bumblebee gobies in a 30g. always something going on in there, and no probs to date.

the flounders that you mentioned, what sort of size will they reach?

 

[The-Wolf]

I heard of it and ate it in a Japanese resturant in Prague
very nice it was too

 

[CFC]

The most commonly seen flounders are those from the Brachirus genus which generally reach about 6 inches in captivity, a word of warning though is that they are ambush predators that when adult will eat tiny fish like bumblebee gobies.

 

[Pufferpunk]

It's also worth mentioning that no-one, not even highly experianced pufferkeepers like Klaus Ebert, have been able to keep any takifugu species alive in captivity for more than five or so months, which when you consider that this fish has a 15 year lifepan in the wild, is a terrible waste of life.

Not totally true. For the T ocellatus, yes but there are several that are fairly easy to keep. There is a gal at The Puffer Forum that has been keeping T niphobles for many years now.

Note: Puffernet is extremely bad for ID. The pics that were linked above are of T ocellatus. Ocellatus is the species that is impossible to keep any length of time in captivity.

 

[LoachLover]

It's also worth mentioning that no-one, not even highly experianced pufferkeepers like Klaus Ebert, have been able to keep any takifugu species alive in captivity for more than five or so months, which when you consider that this fish has a 15 year lifepan in the wild, is a terrible waste of life.

Steer well clear

Yeah that's pretty sad. A lot of people have trouble keeping puffers alive anyway.

 

[SirMinion]

Note: Puffernet is extremely bad for ID. The pics that were linked above are of T ocellatus. Ocellatus is the species that is impossible to keep any length of time in captivity.

Ha! I hadn't looked at the link and yes you're right, that is a peacock!
Like you, I've had issues with puffernet's pictures before too.

I knew that the peacock (ocellatus) was impossible to keep, even though it's the species most commonly found for sale, (at least around here it is) but I had understood that the others were very difficult too.
Big kudos to your member for the niphobles then!

We live and learn.

 

[simonas]

A standard 36" tank is roughly around 30 gallons in volume and so offers you quite a bit of scope for stocking a brackish set up. With that tank you could keep 2 figure 8 puffers, brackish gobies with a maximum size of about 6 inches, flounders, glass fish (Chanda species) and various other brackish oddballs in varying combinations and numbers.
A nice set up would be 4 knight gobies, 2 figure eight puffers, 6 glass fish and 2 flounders.

that sounds like a good tank actually. I love the knigt gobies and remember having them in a freshwater community about 10 years ago not knowing they were brackish. brackish fish seem to be coming more popular as the lfs's by me have tanks specially for them now

 

[chris_1127]

thanks for the warning cfc -saw some tiny fw flounders at the weekend (about 2cm) and was tempted, but dont really want to put the bbg's at any more risk than they are already with the figure 8's