[Inaudible] my favorite type of fish, puffer fish.
I am super excited to talk to you today about pufferfish puffers are some of my
favorite fish out there, mostly because of their personality. I just,
I don't see any other fish, um,
at least not in the aquarium industry or even in the wild for that matter that
have the personality that puffer fish do.
So as with any of these videos that I'm doing,
I like to break down things down into groups.
So we're going to break them down into small, medium, and large, proper fish.
But before I start breaking things down, why don't you leave a comment below?
Let me know what puffer fish you have ever kept in an aquarium,
or if you haven't kept one, what one would you love to keep? Okay,
let's get started with these small puffer fish.
Now these guys look a little bit different in body shape than the rest of the
different kinds of covers. Um, and that's going to be the Valentini puffer.
You can see,
they kind of have an elongated nose that look almost kind of reminds me of like
duck face. So the Valentini puffer, they're going to stay pretty small.
And so will the blue spot pepper. Now the blue spot pepper.
I've also heard them referred to the Fiji blue spot. Um, but it just,
the name varies from place to place. Now,
both of those two are going to stay relatively small,
about three and a half to five inches give or take. So, um,
when it comes to take size,
you can probably keep them anywhere from a 30 to 50 gallon and there'll be good.
The next group of puffers that we've got, I'm a medium sized puffers.
And I guess maybe they're not really that medium because some of them are
upwards of foot in like,
but that is going to be the dog face puffer.
Now one cool thing about the dog face pupper is that in addition to having that
elongated nose, you can get them in a couple of different color patterns. Now,
some fish will change color based on their mood, but the dog based puffers,
sometimes I've seen them have really, really dark Brown bodies,
but I've also seen them almost a, a light Brown, black spots,
and I've even seen a golden belly dog face pop for them. Absolutely beautiful,
beautiful fish. So keep an eye out at your local fish stores.
If you can't find those,
the next one is going to be the immaculate puffer again. Um,
that's going to be in the medium size range. I don't see those that often, um,
in local fish stores or even online for that matter,
but they are out there and that is an option.
The next puffer is going to be a bird fish while it doesn't have puffer fish in
the name, it is a type of puffer.
One cool thing about the bird fish is as you can see,
you can actually see their spikes. They're sticking up,
unlike all of the other puppers that I'm going to talk about today.
If you were to handle them, it almost kind of feels like a pine cone. Um,
and when they get stressed out and they inflate,
that's just going to be like a big balloon, really, really tough.
Slice. Now the last one.
Medium-sized puffer is our cookie pine puffer. Now, in my opinion,
these guys are probably one of the best puffers in the aquarium hobby
for you to keep in your home take. They have great personalities.
I've seen them anywhere from like half the size of your pinky,
all the way up to full grown. And they have wonderful personalities.
Now like the bird fish, you can actually see the spines on the porcupine pumper,
but they're not going to stick up unless they're stressed and those puffer fish
inflate. Now our next group of Culver's is going to be the large covers.
Um, these guys, most of them get pretty big.
Some of them you can get away with keeping it home aquarium,
but there's two that are definitely not recommended and I'll get to those lasts.
But first up we have our golden cover.
One cool thing about the golden hopper is that it can come in two different
colors. So it could be a jet black, almost, um,
like a real dark blue or dark purple with white spots, beautiful,
beautiful fish, but it can also change colors into a gorgeous golden yellow.
Now that doesn't always happen in captivity, but it definitely can.
So our next puffer is going to be the stars and stripes covers.
Now I'm classifying them as large puffer. Um,
I don't often see them that big in home aquariums,
but they do get to be rather large and they have that signature,
um, polka dots and stripes pattern on them. They're they're cool. They're cool.
Fish. Now as mentioned these last two puppers,
they get to be giant.
I don't recommend keeping them in home aquariums and it's tricky,
especially when they're babies, they look a lot like,
so these two are going to be the story puffer or sometimes referred to
as the state a lot as puffer. Um,
I've actually kept one of those when he was a baby,
he could fit almost in the Palm of my hand.
And in the course of six to eight months, got to be massive almost.
I would say a foot and a half in length,
and he wasn't even full grown in the wild.
Those guys can get to four feet in length.
So you definitely don't want to get these guys and get attached to it and then
have to have a new home for them.
Now the other extra large puffer is the scribbled pepper puffer
or the Mapa puffer as it's sometimes referred to not when they're babies,
they do look a lot like those story, puffer fish. Um, and,
but that's another one that's going to get to significantly larger size
almost, um, two or 2.2 feet in length.
So again, it's a big, big puffer,
unless you've got one of those really giant aquariums,
a couple thousand gallons, you probably don't want to have one of these.
Offers at home that sums.
Up our groups of puffers. Let's head to the kitchen and talk about.
Diets. Okay,
let's talk about diet for your puffer fish right now.
If you didn't know puffer fish are carnivores,
you might have good inclination of that. If you take a look at their face,
they have some pretty intense teeth or at least some of them do.
Now I'll talk a little bit more about their teeth later on when we discuss the
issues that they have. But before we get into foods,
I'm curious to know if you've ever kept a puffer fish.
What kind of food was their absolute favorite? Right.
So today's talk about food is a little bit different than any of the other fish
profiles that we've talked about because they are such carnivores.
Most of their diet is going to come from a lot of different kinds of shellfish
and really intense meaty foods.
Now that's not to say that they won't go for things like Nori.
If you put it in there, I've seen plenty of puffer fish eat Nori,
but primarily what you're going to focus on feeding them is a lot of meaty
foods. So let's get started with the blister packs.
So this is just another different kind of blister pack that you can use.
This is Brian shrimp. Now that's going to be good for those smaller puffers,
like the Valentini puffer or the blue spot puffer. Now,
when it comes to large meaty, frozen foods,
there's a whole bunch of different options that you have out there.
I've just got a few of them. It doesn't always have to be, um,
the brand that is sold in your local fish store, right?
So anything that you find at the store at the grocery store that's made for
human consumption is good for your fish. So right here,
I've just got like a bulk pack of clams that you can use. Um,
I think I just got that from like the Ralphs or Albertsons next up.
This is probably one of my favorite blends. I have actually used this. It's got,
um, squid, scallops and shrimp, I believe in there. Um,
this is actually from trader Joe's. It's like seven 99 a bag.
It's a great variety. Um, especially for those puffer fish,
the larger puffer fish that are really,
really big meat eaters that eat a lot in one setting sitting,
it helps to keep those costs a little bit lower. Now you also have,
um, your aquarium brands like the Omega one. This is,
krills kind of hard to see in there, but you can break off chunks, um, large,
big pieces of krill for them. And then foods like rods.
This is a great predator blend. See if you can see in the back,
you can see some of those larger chunks and it does have, um,
little bits of seaweed in them, in there for them as well. All right. Now,
something I couldn't find before I started filming this video,
but I definitely wanted to include, um, silver sides, right?
So I've got to give a shout out to reptiles and reefs in Las Vegas for, uh,
giving me these to show you guys.
So several of those large pepper fish are just going to eat these holes.
So you could just give it to them.
They're going to suck it in like a vacuum cleaner,
another thing that you can use.
And I don't often see these at local fish stores,
but if you go to the seafood section at your grocery store, um,
these are muscles you can, um, sometimes them at your local fish store there,
they might come like this,
or you might be able to find the muscles in the half shell, um,
or in the whole shell at the grocery store.
So that's a bunch of different options that you have for food a little bit more
outside of the box than some of our other food sessions,
but let's go talk about some of the issues that your puffer fish might
encounter.
So what I didn't mention when we were in the kitchen is that puffers are
incredibly messy eaters, right?
I've never seen a fish that is more messy when it comes to eating as puffers
are. So it's really, really important that if you get a puffer fish,
you need to make sure that you keep up on your qual water quality,
which means you're doing your water testing.
You're doing your water changes as needed. And maybe in between those, um,
you want to go ahead and switch out to your filter media as often as you can,
if you've got those filter socks or the filter floss, um,
just go ahead and switch those out.
Sometimes it helps if you've got a spare pair of say,
filter socks or some extra filter floss that way, um,
you could just go ahead and change it out when it gets messy,
because if you've got puffers, it's going to get messy. The next thing,
when it comes to puffers that you might have to worry about is when they get
stressed, sometimes they inflate, right?
They're called puffer fish or balloon fish. For that reason,
it's a self-defense mechanism.
It's not always in self-defense sometimes they'll puff up as a
way to kind of stretch themselves,
but they'll also pop up if they feel scared or threatened and the way they do
that, they've got a special stomach lining.
They're able to pull in a whole bunch of water and inflate themselves.
And those spines on them will stick right out.
Now it can be very dangerous if you are in the process of transferring your
puffer from one tank to the next, or from your core team, into your main tank,
if it gets out of water and it puffs while it's in the air,
it's means it's going to have a stomach full of air and you don't want that.
So one recommendation is to try and keep it submerged in water for as long
as possible possible, and eliminate the amount of time that it's an air.
And if once you transfer it,
make sure to kind of watch it for a little while and you'll be able to notice if
it's got air trapped in its stomach, it'll kind of be swimming off kilter,
or it won't be able to stay level in the water. Um,
if you see that you can, this is going to sound crazy. You can try burping it,
um, and helping to dislodge that air. But before you try burping it,
give it some time just to swim around.
It might be able to dislodge that air bubble by itself. Now, the next thing,
when it comes to puffer fish that you need to worry about is their teeth right
now. It's pretty obvious on some of them.
You can actually see those buck teeth hanging out. And when we were in,
in the kitchen, we talked a lot about, um,
different hard-shelled things that they can eat, right?
So the reason that you feed them, all of those really meaty,
crunchy objects is to help keep their teeth file down. And if you don't do that,
the teeth can get overgrown that they can have a hard time eating.
And you might end up having to sedate your fish to go in and
trim those teeth,
who to ever thought that a fish would need to go to the dentist,
but I've done it before. I'm telling you if you can avoid it,
do avoid it at all costs. Okay?
Now the next thing we're going to talk about is enrichment.
I really do want your fish to live their best lives. A happy,
healthy fish is going to be well lived in your aquarium.
Now, one thing that you can do for puffers, actually,
there's a bunch of things you can do for enrichment is you can just interact
with them, play with them. Puffers. As I mentioned before, are very charismatic.
They are always curious. Um, I guess if you could say a fish was adventurous,
I would say puffer fish are adventurous.
So they like to explore their surrounding areas.
So you can always like a bunch of other fish.
You can switch up their environment. Now most,
all puffers are not reef safe.
There's always some exceptions and some that aren't going to be interested in
your reef, but for the most part, proper fish are kept in Fowler tanks.
So you can switch up the rock, work and change things around.
So it's new and exciting and interesting for them.
Something else you can do is change up the flow in the tank.
So there's a bit of a different current that they have to, um, you know,
challenge themselves against.
I wouldn't recommend changing your lighting up when it comes to puffers,
you'd be amazed at the silly things that can scare them or freak them out. Um,
and lighting I've noticed sometimes, um,
in the mornings I've seen puffers puff up when the lights come on.
So I would avoid changing the lights. Now,
one thing you can do is you can target, train them.
How cool is that puffers are incredibly intelligent fish,
so you can target train them for when it's time for them to eat.
You'd have like a little sign out.
And when they come up to the sign and you can give them food,
and that's a station training for the puffers, it challenges them.
I've had so many wonderful experiences with target training puffers. Um,
I'll try and include a clip here, but if not check out my channel water log,
I've got some awesome videos of different puffer fish that I have trained in the
past. And it's incredible, incredible to watch them learn
one last way that you can enrich your puffer.
Fish is life is through tank mates. Now, puffer fish.
I mentioned they have really big personalities. They're their characters.
And because of that,
I'm really hesitant to tell you to put them in with other puffer fish.
I know people that have kept multiple species of puffers together in
a tank, and they've done fine,
but I've also known the reverse and had huge failures.
Now, if you do have extra, extra large tank,
it is possible to keep a whole bunch of one species in together or multiple
species together. But it really you're going to need to have a lot of space,
like thousands of gallons of tank room for them to swim around. Now,
if you're not sure if the fish that you want to get is going to be compatible
with the proper fish, you can always check out that fish compatibility chart,
just follow those rows and see if the cover lines up.
But for the most part, I wouldn't put more than one puffer annotate,
just, just be safe.
You don't want to fall in love with the cute little guys and then have your
heartbroken. If something happens to them. All right, before I end the video,
I would love to hear if you've got an awesome pufferfish story.
I would love for you to leave that in the comments below.
If you've got photos or videos, feel free to reach out to me on social media,
on waterlogged I'm on there on Instagram or Facebook,
I would be more than excited to see any of your puffer, fish, videos, photos,
and hear your stories. Thank you so much for watching. I will see you next time.