Keeping Takifugu Ocellatus

[CFC]

It is well known that this fish does not do well in captivity and that even world reknowned fish keepers have been unable to keep this fish alive for longer than 6 months in captivity but no one knows why apperently healthy fish suddenly die for no apperant reason, so when these fish suddenly showed up in a shop i occasionally frequent my curiosity got the better of me and i decided to try one for myself. I figured the fish is already here, we can't send it back and if its gonna die anyway then why not at least try and learn something about them while it is alive and if we can't learn anything then at least we can write a big post up so that other people dont have to try for themselves and waste their money too.

So this is my Takifugu occelatus diary which will be updated weekly or if anything eventfull happens in between.

Day one

Fish is purchased and bought home where i set about drip acclimatising it from freshwater to brackish water with a SG of 1.014 and a pH of 8, while waiting for this process to be finished i hit the net to gleen any information i can on the fish. There isnt much about but straight away i find that this fish is NOT a tropical species and actually preffers a temperature of around 18-22 celcius, luckily i run all my tanks at lower than recomended temperatures and the tank it is being introduced to has a temperature of 20-22c. I also search the web for related species and check gut content analysis records to see if there is anything out of the ordinary in their diet but there is nothing unexpected there.
After some 6 hours the fish is ready to be introduced to the tank, the fish showed no visable signs of distress during the acclimatisation period and settles into the tank quickly, within 2 hours it joins the other fish in eating at feeding time stuffing its face with cooked frozen mussel and prawns.

 

[CFC]

Week 2

I decided to not make an entry last week as nothing interesting had happened, and basicly it still hasn't

So far i have found that the fish appears to have a very small stomach in relation to its body size and a fast metabolism with relatively small meals causing the fish to bloat out considerably in the abdomen area only for the fish to return back to normal size within a couple of hours. This leads me to believe that they are probably grazing type feeders in the wild which continually pick off small inverts rather than hunters which attack and devour a single large meal like the majority of puffer species tend to. At the moment the fish is helping itself to a steady stream of malaysian trupet snails supplemented by twice daily feedings of small cooked and de shelled prawns or mysis shrimp and occassional live river shrimp. It has shown no interest in mussels, clams or fish and when offered these foods instead will refuse to eat. It could be that this fish needs a mature tank rich in invert life to continually feed on in much the same way as Mandarin fish do in marine aquaria for it to remain healthy. I plan to experiment with some live rock in the future to test this theory but will need to raise the SG to 1.018 first.

Like other puffers it also has a fondness for the fins of other fish, particularly catfish fins so it is now in a divided area of the tank on its own, it did not show any aggression or fin nipping toward the scats, archer fish or monos in the tank however.

 

[bunjiweb]

Sounds good CFC, will be interesting to see how these fellas do in the long-term.

The couple who bought the pair we had said they were alive last time they came in!

Ben

 

[nmonks]

Hi CFC,

Glad the puffer is doing well.

I'm surprised you're letting it eat Malayan trumpet snails... listening to some puffer-keepers, you'd think that was tantamount to feeding it on cyanide waffles. But every puffer I've seen in the wild has chomped away on much tougher fare, so frankly I'm pretty sure there's no risk for a 10+ cm puffer from even the toughest Malayan trumpet snail.

Your theory about feeding sounds good and well worth testing. I would agree with you that there seems to be a gradation among puffers as far as metaoblism/feeding goes. At the one end, things like Tetraodon fahaka seem to be very lethargic, basically gorging once every few days and sleeping the rest of the time (at least when they're not beating the heck of some other fish in their territory). Other fish, like South American puffers, seem to want to feed almost continuously, and if this isn't done, seem to have very slow growth rates. Perhaps the Takifugu is the same, but more so. Maybe that would explain the sudden deaths? Drop in blood sugar levels, coma, death...

Fin-nipping is interesting. My Colomesus certainly does nip (very) occasionally, but only certain species. Platies, Corydoras, and Rhinogobius duospilus, yes, but not glassfish, black mollies, royal Panaque, Cardinals, rams, halfbeaks, Awaous flavus, bumblebee gobies, or Synodontis nigriventris. (I hasten to add, these fish aren't all in the tank at the same time!) I don't know whether some fish taste better than others, or some are just smart enough to get out of the way.

I don't think living rock actually comes from coral reefs but from non-coral reefs, i.e., harbours, rocky shores, oyster beds, etc., so you might well have some latitude as far as salinities go. Years ago, when people started keeping marine fish, it was quite common to keep marine fish at SG 1.018, the theory being that it placed less of a demand on the osmoregulation system. In effect, the fish needed to work its 'bilge pumps' rather less than in normal marine conditions. While this isn't done much nowadays, I think the science is solid, and if this fish really is balanced on a meatabolic knife-edge, then keeping it in high-brackish rather than full strength sea water could be useful.

Anyway, looking forward to more installments!

Cheers,

Neale

 

[penguinpimp1990]

I know this is quite an old topic but im wondering if he is still alive..........

 

[CFC]

Unfortunately the fish is not alive. However its demise was not of unexplained reasons but because of my own stupidity in using a Fluval 303 external filter on its tank which on the 31st of December last year blew its seal and dumped 60 gallons of water onto my carpet and killed the puffer. Up till then the puffer had been doing really well, eating like a horse and extreemly active.

Its not the first time a Fluval has let me down, i should have learnt my lesson from the first one i had

 

[Ben]

Too bad about the puffer CFC, Do you think if you ever find another one you'll give it another go?


DD

 

[Little Fish]

Unfortunately the fish is not alive. However its demise was not of unexplained reasons but because of my own stupidity in using a Fluval 303 external filter on its tank which on the 31st of December last year blew its seal and dumped 60 gallons of water onto my carpet and killed the puffer. Up till then the puffer had been doing really well, eating like a horse and extreemly active.

Its not the first time a Fluval has let me down, i should have learnt my lesson from the first one i had

I know this question is off topic but I have a real concern. I have been using hang-on filters for all my fish keeping until last year when a friend highly recommended external canisters. They are superior to hang-on filters and I’ve been using them for my 2 larger tanks. When hang-on filters go bad it just stop working but more than once I heard when external canister failed it spills water on the floor. What is the average life expectancy of a canister filter? Do people replace them regular before they failed?

 

[pica_nuttalli]

Unfortunately the fish is not alive. However its demise was not of unexplained reasons but because of my own stupidity in using a Fluval 303 external filter on its tank which on the 31st of December last year blew its seal and dumped 60 gallons of water onto my carpet and killed the puffer. Up till then the puffer had been doing really well, eating like a horse and extreemly active.

Its not the first time a Fluval has let me down, i should have learnt my lesson from the first one i had

oh wow, you must have been just gutted...

 

[SirMinion]

We use cannisters on all our tanks but are careful to place the inlet pipe quite high in the tank.

This way if the cannister fails and leaks only the top 20% of the tank is drained onto the floor saving the fish (and the heater!) from death.

Having the pipe high in the tank also prevents sand from getting sucked into the filter when the fish kick it up.

_________________________

CFC- that really sucks, I hope you try again, peacock puffers are fantastic looking beasties.

 

[penguinpimp1990]

for my canister filters i just place them in a 55 gallon rubbermaid container while theyre running, in the case of a leak (which has happened) the water just fills up into the rubbermaid and not over your carpets. Just make sure the rubbermaid doesnt have those little holes in the corners. Just a little advice for canisters

and how did the puffer die? im guessing it didnt end up on the carpet, how long was it from the last time you checked the tank to the time that you noticed the spill? And im not quite sure about fluvals, but maybe the seal busted because of the salty water? my fluval has worked great for my FW tank

are you gonna try to keep another? you really should try again as it wasnt your fault for him/her for dieing

 

[CFC]

and how did the puffer die? im guessing it didnt end up on the carpet, how long was it from the last time you checked the tank to the time that you noticed the spill? And im not quite sure about fluvals, but maybe the seal busted because of the salty water? my fluval has worked great for my FW tank

The puffer was killed by being left in 2 inches of unfiltered un oxygenated water, the filter blew its seal between 1am and 10am on new years day while i slept off the new years eve drinking. Salt water has nothing to do with it, Fluvals are just crap.

If i see another takifugu one day i may keep another, i guess it just depends on whether i have a free tank at the time.

 

[bunjiweb]

Thats a real shame. I have heard this happen before with Fluval externals.

I think I will probably always stick to Eheim as I have never have had a problem with them yet...

Ben