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Puffer identification?

A steady supply of snails and frozen bloodworms should suffice mate.
You could do live bloodworms if you can get them.
The puffers are so small that they can only manage to eat 1 - 2 worms anyway.

When I kept larger pufferfish I fed sea foods like half clams, fresh shrimp, fresh crab as the shells help grind down their teeth.
This isn’t essential for pea puffers in my experience.
 
Go to East Lothian Aquatics in Tranent on Friday afternoons for live food. Fresher, cheaper, more variety than Kishkeeper Melville. They post on their facebook page when their delivery is in
 
Well, I got a selection of what live-food they had in stock:
  • 3 pcks of mosquito larvae
  • 2 pcks of dwarf shrimp
  • 1 pck of tubex worms
I think I will split the tubex worms into small clumps and plant them a few millimetres below the surface of the subbstrate. That way they will have a sporting chance of escaping and hunting them down will provide entertainment for all my fish. As for the rest, I will experiment and see what they like.

I tried a [thawed out] frozen mixture of tubex and bloodworm I had in stock, but they looed at me as if to say: "I am not eating that crap". The salesman assured me that, in the shop, they were fead frozen bloodworm, so I got a selection box of:
  • Daphne
  • Bloodworm
  • Brine Shrimp
  • Mysis
At the moment, I have got to go and do a clean up of uneaten frozen mush, which despite their apparent distate, the puffers seem to be guarding from the other fish.🙄
 
Wow, those water change sytems are amazing!

I just sand-vacced all the crap that had been stuck in the dwarf grass; cleaned up around the filter inflow; vaccumed up the frozen mush and did water changes on two tanks in under 45 minutes.😎

I am going to hold off trying out the new food until their regular feeding time, but would appreciate guidance on quantities for the dwarf shrimp and mosquitoe larvae. The guy in the shop suggested emptying the bag into a glass jar [I have large test tubes with caps], and just feeding a small portion each day?
 
Okay, I have given this some very careful thought and I am going to try and keep them. After carefully reading the links, my first impressions are that I have too many. I counted seven of the little buggers during this mornings feeding of dwarf shrimp. Currently, their sex is undetermined, but I think what I want in my tank is 2*female and 1*male. That is three in total, the other four will go into my overflow tank. So if any member in the Edinburgh area would like either four dwarf puffers and/or 5 x-ray tetras, please do get in touch. Otherwise I will return the surplus to the shop. That is assuming I can catch them!

With regards to the brine shrimp, I dipped into my monthly emergency budget to get a basic kit + eggs. In addition, there are a number of youtube videos about culturing daphnia, and ordered three packs of live daphnia. Most of these will go directly to feed my fish, but I hope they will be in good enough condition to start a daphnia culture alongside the brine shrimp.

Any tips and advice on culturing live food are welcome.
Irvine
 
I have a few stem plants to add to my overstock tank this afternoon (because it is primarily a temporary tank, it is a basic Dutch scape which should make it easier to catch anything I put in there.) Anyway, in order to move the overstock, I am planning out how best to partially dismantle my display scape and am looking for a few tips and general advice. 😕

By the end of my first month on the aqua-scape learning curve, (about a month ago), I realised that it is best not to glue [most] plants directly onto the hardscape, but rather glue them to small pebbles which can be easily moved, This is good and will certainly make things a lot easier; however, the exception is of coarse my mosses: Weeping moss counter balanced with Table or Christmas moss was part of the original concept, and as a result, the design of the mount points greatly benefited from my inexperience. My original thoughts, after spending over a year watching aquascaping videos on youtube, was some kind of ss mesh held on with suction cups, ditto the para-cord liana. After working with the materials, I realised that a much better mount point for my mosses would be knotted para-cord, which, once again, would be attached to the wall with suction cups.

Noting that the mosses are so fragile, any kind of disturbance causes serious damage. Suction cups are totally inadequate to hold the mount points: Basically, as they age they are becoming harder and harder to get to stick to the tank wall. This results in big bald spots where the damage to the mosses is so severe they cannot recover. This is particularly true of the para-cord liana, which needs to be moved regularly for tank maintenance. (Currently, I am testing ss hooks made with salvaged mesh from my MK II lid.) (The new MK III lid is almost perfect by the way.😎)

The other problem is my floaters!

To protect the floaters I have strategically positioned five ponds seeded with Weeping moss under my Floodlight, which is angled away from the filter. The ponds are currently stocked with three varieties of floater, and Im looking for suitable long rooted fourth and fifth varieties. The current stock-list is:
  • Frogbit: A Tropica 1-2 grow cup which arrived over a week ago in excellent condition. The roots are currently 15cms long and extremely fragile.
  • Red Root Floaters: These really make me want to weep. I just need to look at them and the will take a dunking, and, since the leaves are neither water repellent nor bouyant, they are really struggling.
  • Water Lettuce: These, while still small, are thriving.

I am making offerings to Gaia [the god of aqua-scapers] that I do not have to touch the network of caves, The carefully arranged boulders are currently stable, but, from experience, nearly impossible to put back in the correct order

Anyway, I hope you can see my problem, and why I would welcome any guidance on the best way to go about this.
Irvine

Edit: Since I actually have seven puffers though the recipt shows only six, I think I might just keep one large/female puffer and return the other six to the shop and get some hovering loaches in their place
 
Well, mixed results: I got five of the little puffers into the overstock tank, but not only were the tetras far too fast for me, but, with the hardscape cleared away, it turned out the shop had given me [at least] eight of the beasts! This could have been an ecological disaster. My main tank is only 90 litres, and while I have set up six distinct habitats (8 or 9 if you count mosses and floaters), which is enough territory for six breeding pairs, the effects on my other fish would have been catastrophic.

Unfortunately, one of the little puffers didn't survive capture. Among other peculiarities, they have a highly evolved swim bladder which makes them very sensitive to both exposure to air and sudden changes in pressure. While trying to capture one, I occidentally caught it between the rim of the net and the tank wall. When I realised what I had done, I let it go immediately, but it was too late, it died a few minutes later. By the time I caught four, they realised they were being targeted and were really going out of their way to hide in the 'Caves of Doom' and 'Lobelia Forest', I finally managed to net the fifth one, but by this time I was exhausted and still had to rebuild the scape.

So, the upshot is I have what I am pretty sure is a breeding pair [one large and one small] marking out their territory at the 'Leith Street' entrance of the 'Caves of Doom',

I am kinda ambivalent about this.

To explain: I don't actually view it as a community fish tank, but rather as a 'Nature Scape'. As such, providing there is enough habitat to provide shelter and security for the other fish, then a fish like the dwarf puffer definitely belongs in the tank. Last night, I spent several hours studying the tank, and was repeatedly struck by the beauty of schools of puffers patrolling the various types of habitat. It was like seeing schools of barracuda patrolling a reef. However, now that there are only two puffers, I can already detect a much more relaxed attitude among my other fish. So, the question is, "Do I really want a breeding pair?"

The fact is, a solitary large female patrolling the tank would suffice for the 'artistic' element of a nature scape, and would not only avoid a lot of incidental hassle, but also open up habitat for other unusual oddballs like 'Thai Micro Crabs'. However, this is predicated on being able to catch the small male, which begs the question: "Is it worth the effort?"

At the moment, with regard to catching fish, I am thinking about making a Pythagorean fish trap out of an old coke bottle. I used to use this type of trap when catching minnows for salmon fishing and they are amazingly effective. All it takes is a suitable bait that both the tetras and puffers will find irresistible.

On other fronts, I managed to do very little damage to the roots of my frogbit, and replenished the water lettuce and red root floaters from stock I am growing in tubs on my kitchen window. So, I am marking that as a success.
 
Well, I went for the tried and trusted lobster pot design:
FishTrap-Overview.jpg

I have attached other pics below to give a clearer idea of the design and scale, but the basic idea is:
  1. I loosely tie up something irresistible in the fine netting bag; close the trap and place it in a convenient spot in the tank.
  2. The fish swim in to get the treat, but can't get back out until I open the trap.
Noting that I have two distinct species I wish to catch:
  • Dwarf Puffers
  • X-ray Tetras
Anybody got any ideas on the perfect bait and, in particular, the best placement of the trap for each of the species?
Irvine
 

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Well, three or four days in and no luck.

I positioned the trap on "The Plains of Terror", which they had been marking off as their territory. (By the way, I had to rename the "Caves of Terror" to "The Caves of Wrath" under "Mount Doom")
LobsterPot.jpg

On the first day, to get them used to it, I positioned it without bait and left it open. After 24 hours, I closed it and tried some frozen bloodworm. The puffers hung around the entrance,and looked at me as if to say: "Mm, tempting. But no thanks"

After cleaning up the crap, I decided to try an algae flake. 😉

No, I am not stupid. I was hoping to get an idea of what they had done to my snail population and maybe entice them in with a few juicy snails. Not unexpectedly, after a week with eight hungry dwarf puffers, my snail population has collapsed. More importantly though, with an algae flake and few other choice titbits, I was able to entice the juvenile pygmy corys to swim in and out of the trap through the mesh. I am hoping the puffers notice this and not realise that the pygmy corys are a bit smaller than they are.

This morning, after some maintenance, I used a long pipette to release the last of the mosquito larve into the cage. They immediately headed out through the bars into the deep blue of course, but all my fish noticed that the source of this bounty was from inside the cage.

Also, I have 300ml of brine shrimp on the go and am attempting to culture daphnia in my tubs of floaters. Instead of an air stone for the daphnia, I am giving the tubs an extremely gentle swirl with a spatula every time I go past. This is a temporary measure because my only air pump is working the sponge filter on my over-stock tank and the brine shrimp hatchery. If it works, fine and good. If not, then I will get another air pump and put it on a timer.

While it still a bit early, I managed to fill a 10ml pipette with enough daphnia to make a little treat for both tanks, they were much appreciated by all the fish except the puffers I am trying to trap. With a rather melancholy look, they explained that: "If I think they are stupid enough to fall for that old trick, then I was going to badly disappointed!" But we shall see....:twisted:
 
You'd be better using a clear plastic bottle drinks bottle, top removed and inverted inside with some holes punch in it - it's worked very well for me in the past - I removed all 60 fish from a previous tank over 24 hours using one.

Your living treats will then remain inside for a lot longer to tempt the fish inside, and you'll risk less damage to the fish if you add no holes to the bottom 1/3 of the bottle, as the fish are still contained in some water if you remove the bottle upright.
 
Wookii said:
You'd be better using a clear plastic bottle drinks bottle
Click to expand...
Oh yes! I completely agree, I used to use these to catch minnows to be dyed blue for salmon fishing, I also used that technique to catch tiny little fish in the Caribbean: With less than half a kilo, you can make a regional variant of fish pakora or, when down by Marseilles, the stock for bouillabaisse. 🙂

The reason I went for the SS lobster pot was because I had the materials to hand, and, being a diabetic, I didn't have a readily available soft drink bottle. If I don't catch them after a few days, I will upgrade the trap as you suggested.
 
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