i have a little dwarf puffer fish probably less than half an inch long who i have had for a litle more than a day. for the time i have had him he has has his tail curled up, and tried to hide…and just now he ate some worms…and he looks much happier and is swimming around happily!
i am a big burly man, but i loves me fish…he is just too cute! 
Yeah, puffers are great fish, i had a green spotted puffer, a brackish puffer, for a few years and it was more like a “dog with fins” than a fish
perfect example, in the morning as i woke up and got ready for work, Zaphod would be happily swimming up and down the side of the tank, occasionally pausing and staring right at me, begging for food, i’d hand-feed him a few pieces of freeze dried krill, then go to work, he’d follow my motions in the tank, following me inside his tank, his colors were bright, iridescent green with brown spots and a white belly, when i returned home from work, he’d be sitting on the gravel, gazing at the gravel, his colors drab and dull, his white belly dark gray, i’d almost say he looked “depressed”, until he saw me, and his colors brighened up instantly, and he would happily swim around the tank
he got to the point he was so tame i could “pet” him, he’d even let me pick him up out of the tank and he never puffed up in defense, he felt completely safe with me
unfortunately, after a few years he developed a gas pocket on his left side, and it made him unable to swim properly, he’d always bob to the surface like a ballon, it made it tough for him to feed, and the skin that was out of the water was always drying out, i tried medicated food, medicated water conditioners, nothing i tried worked, i took him to the pet shop i got him from, which was staffed by experts, and we tried to get his gas pocket lanced…
puffer’s skin is amazingly tough, we first tried a surgical scalpel, just to try to release the gas pocket, it couldn’t penetrate his skin, we tried a hypodermic needle, and actually bent two of them, they couldn’t break the skin, thru all this “torture” (i really hated doing this, but i wanted to cure his gas pocket and nothing else had worked), he never puffed up once, he somehow “knew” we were trying to help him and trusted us
sadly, nothing worked, i had to decide between letting him live out the rest of his life floating sideways in his tank and struggling to feed, or putting him down humanely, i honestly didn’t think he’d be happy in his current state
i apologized to him, held him in my hands one last time, said goodbye, they took him off to the “sleeper bath”, a tank of chemicals that put him to sleep painlessly
i was devistated by this, yes he was “only a fish”, but dammit, he was a pet, he had a personality, and a good home, biology had conspired to give him an incurable disease that had eluded all attempts to cure it, i left the store and for the next two weeks, the tank ran, without my favorite fish
for some reason, a couple weeks after Zaphod had been put down, i went to the pet shop again, to get some supplies for the remaining fish, the fishroom guys took me into the fish room and gave me a new puffer they had special ordered for me, it was a great thing they did, i was a regular customer and never thought they’d do something like that, but they saw how much i liked that fish, they earned a customer for life with that simple act
sadly, that pet store folded a year later, when a stupid petco moved into the area, less than a mile away from them and stole all their cheapo customers, apparently there weren’t enough customers like myself that valued their knowledge and skills and were willing to pay their slightly higher prices (no more than $10 more than petco prices)
okay, on a slightly happier note…
puffers are one of the smartest fish out there, based on brain to body weight ratio, your puffer will learn to recognize you and will beg for food, here’s some tips i found
most puffers will do better in slightly brackish water (1.08-1.09 salinity), however, Figure 8 puffers are true freshwater puffers
feed your puffer a variety of foods, freeze dried krill is good as a staple once your puffer is big enough to handle it, but you can also feed it snails, chunks of cooked shrimp, live ghost shrimp, and live crawfish (for when/if it gets big enough), puffers will actively “hunt” larger prey, in fact, when hunting down a crawfish, my puffer’s favorite treat, he would <graphic description ahead, placing it inside spoiler tags>
start by biting off the craw’s eyes, then biting off the claws, rendering it blind and defenseless, it would then deliver the “killing bite” to the back of it’s carapace, just below the “neck” area, then proceed to eat at it’s leisure
you could see him thinking out his hunting plans as he hovered around the crawfish, just out of range of it’s claws, for smaller puffers, live ghost shrimp are a delicious treat
puffers are carnivorus in nature and a good percentage of their food in the wild is snails and crustaceans, they’re also solitary by nature, they don’t like other puffers, but they get along fine with other fish
Pufferfish flesh contains one of the most potent neurotoxins on the planet, Tetradotoxin, it’s the same toxin found in the Cone Snail and in the Fugu Puffer used in Sushi resturants in Japan, a tiny amount can cause death in humans, but don’t worry, unless you plan to eat your puffer (not reccomended), you have nothing to worry about, puffers have 4 sets of teeth (hence the latin name Tetraodon, or "Four-toothed) fused into a parrotlike beak, this gives them the ability to crush snail shells and cut through crustecean exoskeletons, they can also give a nasty nip, if you plan to hand-feed an adult puffer, be careful, your puffer won’t mean to bite you, it just gets enthusiastic about being fed
in my brackish tank i had Zaphod, my puffer, 4 bumble-bee gobies, and 3 mollies, mollies also can tolerate brackish water, in fact, they thrive in it, they’re not as prone to come down with fin fungus in brackish water, an added advantage of a brackish tank is that it was both disease and algae-free, as there are very few brackish pathogens, and almost no brackish algae, and no, the tank didn’t stink or smell “marshy”, most people associate brackish water with the stinky “marsh odor” which is actually decomposing plants, the water itself is clean
if you want to go brackish, there are two plants that do well in brackish water, Java Ferns and Java Moss, both are slow growing, but almost impossible to kill, and don’t require a lot of light
enjoy your new freind, if you can get him past this delicate stage, you’ll have a great pet that just happens to be a fish, no he won’t be able to play fetch, or get your newspaper (at least until Dr. Wernstrum creates the Reverse-SCUBA Suit 
), but you’ll have a pet that will recognize you, beg for food, be depressed when you’re not there, and happy when you come home
Sounds like he was a fun fish. My bettas have little fishy personalities and attitudes, they’re a hoot. I’ve never had fish before but I’m now hooked on these guys. I will keep puffers in mind if I want to move on to more advanced setups, bettas don’t require cycled tanks. (They’re in 2 1/2 gallon tanks, changed weekly, not itty bitty mean bowls or stupid vases, don’t worry.)
Sandlegs, another thing you might want to consider is to add a few, shall we say, stupider fish to your tank, stupid, fast and durable fish like Mollies, Platies or Danios (Zebra or Giant) as “dither” fish
the purpose of dither fish is twofold;
first, they’re stupid, so they’re always swimming around in open water, even if there’s “predators” about, the more intelligent fish like puffers, labyrinth fish like Gouramis and Bettas, and cichlids (Jack Dempseys, Firemouths, Oscars, African Cichlids, etc…) will adjust their activity based on other fish, if they’re the only ones in the tank, they’ll tend to hide, in order to avoid “predators”, if there are other, stupider fish swimming about, then the smarter fish will assume it’s safe to be out, because they see other fish swimming about
secondly, for more agressive fish like cichlids, the dither fish act as “moving targets” for the cichlid’s natural agressive tendencies, so instead of beating up on the other cichlids, they focus on the dither fish, the dither fish are faster than the cichlids (especially Danios), too stupid to realize their being chased, and durable, so in the event a cichlid does connect with a dither fish, the dither can typically shrug it off and stupidly go back to swimming around
if cichlids start squabbling amongst themselves, the target of agression will typically retreat to a hiding spot and avoid the agressor (as cichlids are smart), unfortunately, that usually makes the agressor madder and causes the target to hide even more, some can become so submissive that they can’t feed, the agressors will keep chasing them away from the food
on the other hand, if you have multiple agressors, neither one will back down and one of them will end up dead
keeping a small number of dither fish in the tank will reduce this antisocial behavior in cichlids
luckilly, the puffer philosophy is “if it’s not another puffer, i don’t care”, Zaphod was a good 4 to 5 inches when he was fully grown, yet he wouldn’t bother the tiny 1 inch long bumblebee gobies that shared his tank, even though they were easily “snack sized”
what size tank is your puffer in?, any other fish in it?, what type of filter/heating system do you use, i’m a reasonably skilled hobbyist, so any questions you have, let me know
MacTech:
Such a sad tale - but truly touching. Did you get a replacement?
Ohh is this a brag on your fishy thread? If so can I play even though I don’t have a puffer fish?
My best fishy is a Synodontis catfish
His name is Kirk(short for Kierkegaard, cause I get the feeling he’s an existentialist) He has big blue eyes and, and swims over to the glass to watch me whenever I walk by. He kind of tries to hand feed, but he likes pellets best, so he just has to follow them to the bottom and wiggle over them expectantly for a bit until they soften. Kirk is a lot cooler than the picture though. He is about 5 inches long, and has a feather fin in perfect shape that is about three inches tall. He also has a bit of an irredecent sheen that you cat see in that picture.
Meta, yes, if you read my post, it took me 2 weeks before i felt comfortable in caring for another puffer, i was going to the pet store in hopes that they had another puffer i could buy, they did, and they gave it to me free, and puffers aren’t cheap either, in fact, this was a very rare Bronze puffer
here’s a great site for the care of puffers;
More info on Zaphod’s species, the green spotted puffer, Tetraodon Fluvitalis
dammit, now i want to go to a pet store and buy a puffer to put in my fully cycled tank…
We need an edit function, i don’t like replying to my own posts, feels like i’m posthogging, please add an edit feature?
anyway, thanks to this thread, i just came back from the petshop with some new occupants for my empty, but cycled, tank, my african cichlid died a few days ago, and i needed some fish to replace him…
first off, i did a 25% water change to clear out any ammonia buildup caused by the dead cichlid, replaced the water with freshly dechlorinated water, checked the chlorine levels to insure they were at 0 ppm and added my new fish;
2 pairs of fancy guppies as dither fish (and as a generator of live food for the puffers, they’ll enjoy a tasty snack of guppy fry)
3 dwarf puffers, just like the OP has, and from my research, it turns out the dwarfs are true freshwater puffers, they’ll grow to be just over 1.5" adult size, making them the perfect occupants for my 20 Long tank (20 gallons, longer than it is tall)
right now one is happily playing in the outflow from my Penguin Emporer 280 power filter, and the other two are exploring the nooks and crannies of the rocks, they seem quite happy in their spacious new home
i feel kinda’ bad for them because i had a lot ofMaylasian Trumpet snails from when Zaphod was in the tank, these snails are good to have as they aerate the gravel and eat algae and detritus, and they doubled as a nice snack for Zaphod, he had no problem keeping their population under control, i don’t have any more in the tank, but the gravel still has the empty shells of the ex-snails scattered throughout, the puffers looked at these empties at first enthusiastically, then sadly when they realized they were empty
the snails were a gift from Pet Emporium (the shop i bought Zaphod at), as they saw them as a nuisance, i could go into PE any time, and come out with a small bag of Trumpets for free, they were happy to be rid of them, and Zaphod loved the treat of the crunchy-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside™ snails, after a few trips to PE, i had enough snails in the tank that they were able to reproduce on their own, now that i have puffers again, i need to find another source of Trumpets
another great puffer snack i need to find are ghost shrimp as the dwarfs will never be big enough to take on a crawfish (at least not an adult craw), but they should be able to handle a ghost shrimp
here are some more aquarium hints, they’re not rules per se, just what i found works in my 20+ yeats of keeping fish;
always purchase fish based on their adult size, check with the staff if you don’t know, that cute little 3" Oscar will quite rapidly grow to 12"+ in a matter of months and require a minimum of a 50 gallon tank (for one fish) is very messy and agressive (they’ve been known to “get up on the wrong side of the tank” and attack the aquarium heater), they redecorate the tank to suit their moods, and will eat live food (feeder goldfish)
always understock your tank, the common “rule” of “one inch of fish per gallon” only works on small fish, using that rule, you “could” keep an Oscar in a 20 gallon tank, but it would have nowhere to swim and would be stewing in it’s own waste, it’d be akin to a human living in a small walk-in closet, it’s technically feasable, but it wouldn’t be a comfortable life, my current tank occupants (3 dwarf puffers and 4 guppies) will be the only occupants of that tank (other than perhaps some snails and ghost shrimp which will add a negligable bioload) at adult size, the tank will have below 50 % of it’s potential bioload
always overfilter the water, by at least a factor of 10, my Penguin Emporer 280 filters 280 gallons per hour, and it has a “Biowheel”, a special wet/dry wheel for the beneficial bacteria (Nitrosomonas, and Nitrobacter) to colonize on, these bacteria consume fish waste, converting the toxic ammonia to less toxic nitrite, and then to the nontoxic nitrate
always use live plants, they help oxygenate the water, and they consume the leftover nitrate and fish waste as fertilizer, they also give fish more places to hide, and they compete with algae for nutrients, some fish also eat them
a fully balanced tank should work like this; fish produce ammonia and waste, Nitrosomonas bacteria converts ammonia to nitrite, Nitrobacter bacteria convert nitrite to nitrate, plants consume nitrate and fish waste as fertilizer and release oxygen for fish to breathe, it’s a balanced circle
never overfeed the fish, it’s better to underfeed than overfeed, overfeeding will spike ammonia levels and cause a bacterial bloom, if you’re going away on a trip, fish can survive up to a week with no food, as long as they’re well fed before you leave, never use one of those “weekend feeder” blocks, they royally screw up the water chemistry
