freshwater puffers?

[Ginevive]

Anyone keep them? I bought one from my friend, it is about an inch long. I researched them a bit and learned they like brackish water.. sorry no pic yet, but he is yellow with black dots and a white belly. Mark was stunned; he said "isn't that a saltwater fish in your tropical tank?!" I have him in with a gourami and two swords; no problems as of yet.

[Kara]

We have 3 different sizes of them in our fish room...I don't know much about them, but they're awfully cute to look at!

K~

[piranhaking]

Is it a figure 8 puffer by any chance? They are brackish, but I know of them being kept in fresh water, and in full salt, so it probably wont be a problem.

[recycling goddess]

puffers don't thrive in fresh water and only salt water puffers can be in salt water. that puffer is a brackish fish which means you need to salt the water or it'll die.

and as for keeping them with gouramis and swords... puffers are nippy. eventually it'll kill the other fish in the tank. most times... puffers need to live with puffers and even then... you may have a lot of nipped fins.

http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/puf-nigr.htm

[Evan Jamison]

Yeah, Aleesha's right on. They can survive for short periods in both fresh and saltwater, but is it fairly stressful trying to osmoregulate in either. Hard, brackish water is ideal. They are awesome little guys though, so I hope you can find a suitable home for him soon.

-Evan

[Shelby]

I kept a dwarf puffer once. Little fin nippers they are, but adorable!

[wolfy-hound]

NIppy is a good word for them. You might try adding just a tad of salt, not enough to bother the other fishes. It might help out, but they really need their own brackish water tank to thrive best.
They are some really cool fish.
Wolfy

[RichardA]

Swordtails can be brackish too so you could set up a brackish tank and have them together. But the Swords tails will be gone soon......LOL.....

Whats cool is we keep some Sail Fin Mollies in full salt.....that really blows peoples minds.

[Evan Jamison]

Whats cool is we keep some Sail Fin Mollies in full salt.....that really blows peoples minds.

Yeah, mollies are quite adaptable. We breed sailfins to feed to new arrivals that are picky feeders at the aquarium until we can get them feeding on prepared foods. We raise them in both brackish and full freshwater, and have kept them in full saltwater before also. They breed best in brackish, but we've had babies in all salinity levels. I have thrown many-a-mollie from freshwater (~150 ppm TDS, pH 6.8) directly into saltwater (30+ppt, pH 8.3) with no obvious signs of acclimation stress, at least for those that don't get eaten immediately that is .

-Evan

[recycling goddess]

unfortunately, the stores sell them as freshwater puffers so that more people will buy them... as honestly is not always the main focus of all fish stores