Freshwater and Brackish Puffer Fish

[emartin]

Has anybody kept any species? I've been wanting to keep a species that sits in the 5"-18" range for TOTAL length.

Anyway despite some info I got from reading the "pufferpedia" section at http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/ug.php/v/PufferPedia/ I have some questions for people who have kept brackish and freshwater puffers.

One, what species would you guys recommend? Currently I do not have a tank big enough available for any species yet (except for my 6ft 150g IF I ever get around to resealing it...) so any species I would get would likely be a small juvenile puffer likely off aquabid or something.

Also, what species are known for having super fast growing teeth? I know some puffer species the teeth (or beak) don't grow as fast and can be kept under growth control by regularly providing hard shelled foods like clams, snails, mussells, crayfish, crabs, etc. Otherwise I read that you have to regularly trim their beaks with a dremel after sedating them or just cut the beaks with cuticles, both of which I'd rather NOT do.

Lastly, with Brackish species, do all I have to do is all enough salt to get the right salinity for them at the same time I add freshwater, or just add some salt, or what?

One of the species I was looking at by the way T. lineatus, the Nile/Fahaka Puffer. Liveaquaria.com sells them I think... And they are purely freshwater.

~Ed

[emartin]

No Puffer keepers here?

[djLAWDAWG]

I had a green spotted puffer and i just used aquarium salt and everything was fine until my crayfish somehow grabbed him one day.

[joe_jaskot]

If you want to keep brackish fish, buy a hydrometer to measure the salinity of the water. Try to keep the salinity consistent. Replace evaporated water with freshwater only. Most puffers are very aggressive. Many only eat live foods.

[Flareside]

I second what Joe said. Try and maintain your salinity at a consistent level because puffers are one of those fish that are very prone to ich. So keeping water parameters (including salninity) in check will go a long way in preventing stress and the onset of ich. Also as Joe pointed out, they are very aggressive so choosing tankmates will likely be a big challenge. If you ever see a tank of them at a lfs- note that all have some chewed fins....they do it to themselves.
Have you seen any of the brackish gobies? I always wanted to do a 20L with brackish gobies...
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b165/LesWebb/knight_goby.jpg

Here is an article on them, you can google them to get pics of each species...
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=545