That is a fish only its mother could love.
You can have him. They sell them in pet stores around here for less than $20, and they are even cuter in person. Just so you know, they’re tiny. Perhaps the pet stores only sell babies, but every one I’ve seen is only a couple of inches long.
But the OP’s fish…it’s ugly. Not as ugly as the blobfish that looks like an extra from a cheesy post-nuclear holocaust horror movie, but pretty ugly.
Probably not a lot of light at 1,500 feet, though.
Plus, pufferfish are smart (well, smart for a fish, largest brain-to-body-weight ratio of any “pet” fish), have distinct personalities, recognize their pet humans, learn to beg for food, and have the ability to hover motionless in the tank, like little piscine helicopters
I had a pet Green Spotted pufferfish as a pet for a while, neat little fish, closer to a “puppy with fins” than a fish, Zaphod was his name, he was hand-tame, I could “pet” him with a moistened finger, cup my hand in the tank and he’d swim into it and sit" in my hand, I could finger-feed him shrimp or snails, he’d beg for food, and even though he had other fish in the tank with him, including some “snack sized” Bumblebee gobies, he ignored them totally, he’d rather spend time with his pet human
Sadly, near the end of his all-too-short life, he developed a gas pocket on his right side, it would float him near the top of the tank, and he had to struggle to swim, I took him to the local pet shop to have one of their saltwater experts/breeders who was an expert in aquaria/fish see if he could help Zaph
We decided to try to lance the gas pocket, that is, we tried to lance it, puffer skin is very tough, we ended up bending two hypodermic needles, and dulling the tip of a scalpel trying to make a tiny hole to vent the gas buildup
Throughout all this torture poor Zaph had to endure, not once did he ever inflate or puff up, and we were certainly acting like “predators”, it was almost like he knew I was trying to help him, and he trusted me, sadly, nothing worked, and Zaph was clearly not leading a happy life with the gas pocket, he looked sad all the time, so the decision was made to put him down, I apologized to him, offered him a final shrimp, which he declined (at that point, he was not eating anyway ) said goodbye, and had him put in a humane anesthetizing bath, where he quietly drifted off to “sleep”
Dammit, I’ve got dust in my eyes again, never thought I’d get so emotional over a “simple fish”
Fun puffer trivia, their flesh contains Tetradotoxin, one of the most powerful and potent paralytic neurotoxins in nature, the same toxin found in the Blue Ring Octopus and the Cone Snail, and the same toxin that gives properly prepared Fugu sushi it’s characteristic “tingle”
Yep, it’s a poisonous pet
Some scientist got some googly eyes from the craft store and went to town with the glue. I’m sure.
I think I remember seeing them as a kid at the pet store. (I went with a pet frog, though.) They didn’t look as cute as this guy, though! He’s SO sweet.