Tetraodon Cochinchinensis

[kimmers318]

AKA Fang's puffer. Another Mother's Day present, I call Zippy. He seems like a rather lazy puffer, but once he takes off he is unnervingly fast. I have scraped my arm up more than once by pulling it out of the tank too fast when he decided to take a swim as he is not very trustworthy either.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h216/kimmers318/tetraodon%20cochinchinesis/100_3239.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h216/kimmers318/tetraodon%20cochinchinesis/100_3233.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h216/kimmers318/tetraodon%20cochinchinesis/100_3258.jpg

You can see in the next pic how me "bugging" him with the camera was making his color darken.....at that point I left him alone to digest his crayfish!
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h216/kimmers318/tetraodon%20cochinchinesis/100_3257.jpg

[CAF]

I SO want to be a puffer when I grow up. Puffers ROCK. Nice pics BTW.

[kimmers318]

Watch what you wish for.....alot of puffers end up in too small of tanks or wrong water conditions and suffer for it. I couldn't tell you how many stores sell fig8's and gsp's as FW and they won't last long that way. Or sell something like my suvatti for someone to put in their community tank and it ends up going on a killing spree.

[CAF]

Watch what you wish for.....alot of puffers end up in too small of tanks or wrong water conditions and suffer for it. I couldn't tell you how many stores sell fig8's and gsp's as FW and they won't last long that way. Or sell something like my suvatti for someone to put in their community tank and it ends up going on a killing spree.


I'd be a big old porcupine puffer with the biggest grin you ever saw... I wouldn't want to be a FW or brackish puff... you are right they get far too much abuse.

[kimmers318]

Yea, SW puffer would be best, the time and $$$ it takes to set up a SW tank I think would make people more inclined to know what they are doing. Although, I do know a lady who has an adorable porc but she only feeds it dry krill......hopefully he finds plenty of other stuff in the tank to eat because a diet of krill only will eventually weaken the puff, they need a varied diet. This guy loves his krill and gives me the snooty nose when I offer something else.....so he goes hungry! Good think with these bigger puffers that they only need to eat every few days or even once a week depending on the age and size, so he is good to go when he wants to get in a snit!

[TowBoater]

I used to have a dwarf puffer. Cute little feller but He got boring so I sold him to my LFS, maybe I need to set-up a 10g puffer tank with like 3 of them? I have a newt tank with only one newt in it that I can part with. What is there requirements?

[Rue]

What a cutie! :41: I can just see 'attitude' in his expression!

How large is he? What size tank is he in?

[CAF]

I used to have a dwarf puffer. Cute little feller but He got boring so I sold him to my LFS, maybe I need to set-up a 10g puffer tank with like 3 of them? I have a newt tank with only one newt in it that I can part with. What is there requirements?

If you put more than one in a tank make sure there are plenty of hiding places. And HOW could a puffer be boring? They are some of the most intelligent and inquisitive fish available. They are probably as smart as most dogs and require almost as much interaction. If your puffer wasn't playing with you and was depressed were you playing with him? They will most definately get depressed and stressed if they can not interact with their environment. Make sure to move around the decor, be it plants in pots and rocks or whatever, as they will endless explore new areas.

[squirt_12]

WOW....very nice puffer...i hjave always wanted some puffers but io don't have the room for more tanks or else i would get some.....maybe some day..maybe some day..

I just think that they are soo cute!!

How many puffers do you have now??

[Nikita706]

Haha! He's totally pissed in that last picture! Very cool!

[kimmers318]

Zippy is in a 20 gallon long FW tank...which has the same footprint as a 29 gallon so plenty of floor space. He should get to be about 3", which he is just over 2" now. As far as looking pissed, he gets pissed off easily....talk about 'tude:hmm3grin2orange: . He was soooo dark and discolored when I got him that several other puffer lovers thought he was a different puffer altogether.

I have a total of 8 puffers, all FW, 2 dwarfs, 3 irrubesco, 1 fangs, 1 arrowhead, and 1 modestus....literally no more room for any more tanks here!!! I am currently staying away from the LFS that I like to visit on occasion that are alot nicer because I don't want to come across a poor puffer needing a home! This poor guy was in a bare bottom tank, no hiding places and scared as can be. Although I didn't have a cycled tank ready for him I brought him home and spent the next couple of weeks seeding the tank from other tanks and checking water parameters to make sure all was well.

Good advice CAF on the dwarfs......these guys are very interactive and you should not have had one that was "bored". Changing decor regularly helps, as does dropping in snails on the sly so they have to hunt them down. I have a fern type plant that I keep in my snail tank and when I see it has a bunch of snails on it I will put it in the dp tank just so they have to hunt them out of it. If you wish to try a trio in a 10 gal Kuhli loach be prepared to stay on top of tank maintenance....puffers can be messy. My dp's don't crunch up the snail shell so they leave empty shells laying around that can rot, and when they eat fast they blow alot of crap out of their gills like oscars do. It can be done, but carefully. I would also suggest starting out with juveniles and all at once. Once you know what to look for it is very easy to pick out males fairly young so go with 1 male, 2 female. I had the store employee put my chosen male into the collection container and then picked out a female......Gizmo immediately went after the first 2 females I picked, but he allowed Lucy to stay so she came home with us.

[CAF]

Yeah.... I really like puffers as well, however my wife does not like any of the speicies that look similiar to dog face puffs. She says they do not like her and show their "teeth" at her.

Here is a funny story. While we were living in Georgia, my wife and I went up to Atlanta for a weekend getaway after I graduated from POST. While there we went to an awesome LFS, (sorry do not remember the name it has been a while...) they had an indoor SW pond that had a Porcupine and a Lionfish, etc. As I walked over, the puffer came over and started bobbing out of the pond saying hi. I thought he was just asking for food at the time, but soon I found out differently. We began to walk through the SW department and there was another porky puff looking all depressed kind of watching everyone go by. Then he saw me. He colored right back up, his fins unclamped, and the biggest happiest puffer grin came on his face.... He was so happy and trying to get to me so hard he was squishing his face up against the glass trying to get through. I apparently had the same puffer grin on my face as I was talking to him according to the wife. After a few moments of this I was looking at something my wife wanted me to see, and we were watching the puff out of the corner of our eyes. probably close to 20 people walked by with no reaction from the puffer except ::sigh... you're not the human puffer:: I'd walk closer so I was back in his field of view and he would go nuts again trying to get to me. This was the first time this sort of thing happened to me. I learned I was a "human puffer"... They ALL love me, I've gone to LFSes and aquariums, and invariably the puffers come over and talk with me for a while, my wife think it is really funny.

One day I'll have enough floor space to get some moretanks, and then more puffers. I miss my little DP

[kimmers318]

I am surprised you have been able to say no all this time with your obvious welcome by puffers of any species!!! They are definitely companiable fish.
I understand about your wife saying they show her their teeth.....check out these pics from when I first brought Shamus home.....he was doing some serious displaying.....
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h216/kimmers318/dp%20tank/shamusteeth3.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h216/kimmers318/dp%20tank/shamusteeth2.jpg

[Rue]

It's no fair, he's got nicer teeth than I have! :hmm3grin2orange:

[kimmers318]

For all of his displaying when I first got him he is my mellowest of my larger puffs! He eats right from my fingers and shares his tank with a couple of cories and a baby guppy that was born here out of a feeder I had bought for another puffer a long time ago.