Three Spined Toadfish - Any Info?

[chris_1127]

a lfs has just had about half a dozen of these delivered yesterday, and theyre very cool, if ugly, looking fish. However i cant find out much info about them in terms of requirements, size, tankmates (if any) at all - does anyone know where i can get any info? theyre under the latin name halophryne trispinosus. cheers!!

 

[nmonks]

You can find a little at Wet Web Media.

It's a batrachoid, a primarily marine group of stealth predators equipped with venomous spines. Most are nocturnal to some degree, and some are quite 'musical', famous for the noises the fish make to attract mates. There's a nice page about them here.

I think you can safely assume that this will grow into a fairly large fish requiring strong brackish or marine water (I'd guess SG 1.010 upwards), live foods such as earthworms and river shrimp, and a decent sized tank. They aren't very active, so swimming space isn't the key thing, but filtration and water chemistry stability is. Read up on equivalent sized lionfish (Pterois spp.) and act accordingly.

I'm sure this fish will happily eat live fishes, but personally I'm against that. For one thing, "cheap" goldfish and guppies are notoriously unhealthy and a good way to pass on parasites. I also think it's cruel. Weaning predatory fish on dead fish is almost (if not quite always) possible. I've done so with a dwarf snakehead, garpike, and marine a lionfish, not to mention seahorses. Also, these marine predators tend to eat a diversity of foods and not just fish; river shrimp, grass shrimp, and 'scuds' (Gammarus spp.) are all more or less similar to important parts of their natural diet. Insect larvae like mealworms are also worth a try.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[chris_1127]

Thanks Neale thats brilliant. How at-risk would you suggest something the size of a knight goby would be to one of these?

 

[nmonks]

Hi Chris,

Difficult to know. As a general rule, long, smooth fish -- like gobies and minnows -- are usually much more at risk relative to their size than deep bodied, spiny fish like cichlids. When I kept a dwarf snakehead at university, it was easily able to eat things like platies and goldfish but would ignore smaller tilapia fry. Presumably the spines in the dorsal fin of the tilapia made them unpleasant mouthfuls.

Anyway, my point is that if you kept this fish with, say, archers, scats, or green chromides around half the size of the toadfish, they'd probably be ignored. But knight gobies, sailfin mollies, and so on, even if relatively large, could be at risk.

The safest approach is, of course, only to keep them with fish bigger than they are, preferably ones that stay close to the surface. Archers, brackish water garpike, perhaps even pike livebearers, might be worth trying. A pufferfish might be an option too; the dog-faced puffer (Arothron hispidus) is the right size and has identical water requirements, and is also relatively peaceful though well able to look after itself. It's sold as a marine, but handles half-strength seawater just fine. It's a bit more pricey than freshwater puffers, but I think worth it.

Cheers,

Neale

Thanks Neale thats brilliant. How at-risk would you suggest something the size of a knight goby would be to one of these?

 

[nmonks]

Chris,

One other thing. Check out this fish at Fishbase. It's called Potamobatrachus trispinosus and according the Shaefer in the Aqualog brackish book, is a genuinely freshwater species, and should not be house in brackish water. It's a tiny little beast, 5 cm long, and I'd guess a wonderful fish to keep in a mixed community tank. It's from South America, so if your dealer can tell you where those fish came from, that might be useful in identifying the fish in question.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[moray]

Hi Chris
I've got one, he's a gorgeous fish that doesn't come out very often. When we first got him we saw him feed, he opened his mouth and the shrimps seemed attracted to it for some reason, they didn't last long. When he was put into a bigger tank we didn't see him eat for ages, we thought he might die as the scats and morays seem to get all the food, but he got steadily bigger, lately he comes up higher in the rock, where he happily takes whitebait from tweezers. Lovely fish fish when you can see them.

 

[CFC]

Actually the one we have is not a Halophryne trispinosus (moray is mrs CFC for those who dont know) ours is Allenbatrachus grunniens or whatever scientific name they are using for the fish this week

If the Halophryne trispinosus is anything like Allenbatrachus grunniens then it is a fearsome predator well capable of swallowing fish up to around 4 inches, these fish are two thirds mouth and stomach perfectly designed for ambushing and quickly devouring prey.

As said by moray a interesting observation on A.grunniens is that it appears to use a chemical lure to bring prey closer to the mouth. When fed live river shrimp we noticed our toad fish would make a series of movements with its mouth and then sit motionless, within a few seconds all the shrimp would suddenly head towards the toad fish and begin picking at the fringes around its mouth, when a substancial mouth full of shrimps were within range the toad fish opened its mouth and inhaled them all with one gulp.

 

[chris_1127]

cheers everyone. Its definitely not the smaller fish Neale, as these guys are already about 5". i was toying with the idea of keeping my figure 8's in a light brackish 30 that they currently share with knight and candystripe gobies, and moving the knights plus one of the toadfish and maybe one or two other oddballs of some sort into a new 60g tank at a higher SG. but think that i may have to have a rethink if its that highly predatory

 

[moray]

No CFC is Mr Moray

 

[Dragonscales]

I have often toyed with the idea of keeping toadfish myself. As has been mentioned, they are predatory and personally I wouldn't keep them with anything the same size or smaller due to their piscivorous nature. Personally I would put alot of thought into maybe keeping the tank species only as well because toadfish can give a nasty sting and possibly hurt tankmates (this goes for your hands as well when doing maintenance, etc). I agree wholeheartedly with training them onto dead foods asap with an occassional treat of live foods such as shrimp, etc as this will make life alot easier in the long run. Meaty foods like cockles and chunks of fish are a good option.

On a sidenote, if you happen to ever be stung by a toadfish you should immerse the area under running hot water (not so hot as to scald yourself obviously, but as hot as you can stand) as the heat helps break down the toxins.