Puffer fish is another most unique and awesome fish to have in freshwater fish tanks. We can find in puffers in freshwater and as well as in marine aquariums. This article discusses some important facts about freshwater puffer fish.
Since this article about to cover up some important fact, You can use this article as a care guide for your freshwater puffers.
If your thinking to have puffer fish in your aquarium, This would be an ideal article for you to read. So I will invite you to continue reading the article and share your thought using the comments section.
Table of Contents
The Puffer Fish basics
Under this heading, I am going to write out the basics details that every puffer lover needs to know. Knowing the basic detail will make easy to understand about this fish very well.
This article I am writing under freshwater and fish care categories. You can check my other posts related to those categories.
Its time to get into the basics.
- Care Level – moderated/advanced.
- Tank – freshwater.
- Size – up to 24 inches.
- Temperament – aggressive.
- Lifetime – up to 10 years.
- Minimum tank size – 10 Gallon tanks.
When considering the above basics, you can see that the freshwater puffer fish is not for beginners. You need to have a good experience to care for a puffer fish.
This fish has an aggressive type of fish. So you better keep them alone in the aquarium. So simply if you about to add a puffer fish into your freshwater tank, it’s better to be a puffer tank.
Puffer fish can see in freshwater as well as in saltwater too. This cute chubby fish will live up to 10 years in a healthy environment.
There is various type of freshwater puffers and they come with different color variations.A nicely setup 10-gallon freshwater tank is ok for this fish as their minim tank size.
The freshwater puffers can grow up to 24 inches. As their diet, the omnivore foods are would be ideal. It would be the best practise to keep this fish alone without mixing with a lot of tropical fish types.
As I said before. Puffers can see in freshwater as well as in marine water (saltwater). There are so many variations of puffer fish in the world. from them there 30 variations live the freshwater environment.
The freshwater puffers can be found in the natural river system in South Asia, Africa and amazon.
The basic behaviour of freshwater Puffers
There are several reasons to make this freshwater fish is a unique type of fish. Puffers can change their body size to avoid become a diet of larger fish types.
They inflate their body as protection from harmful attacks. That is basically the puffer fish defence mechanism that they used in the wild.
Even puffer fish looks cute, this fish contains a very harmful neurotoxin.
The inflatable body of this fish makes them really unique among other fish types. This also makes them be a popular aquarium fish.
The important thing to keep in mind as a puffer fish keeper, even they are looks cute and really unique, they can be very aggressive with the situation they faced on.
So keeping them in a proper environment will make easy for you to care them without any troubles. Even it’s hard having a puffer tank is also a good experience for an aquarium lover.
When considering about their lifespan. this fish has a good life span. If you keep them in proper conditions, they would be a really nice pet fish for you.
Water conditions and proper environment for Puffer fish
Whatever aquarium fish requires to have it’s proper water conditions and environment to live in a fish tank.
When considering the water condition for an aquarium fish, the pH count is really important. The freshwater puffer fish need to have pH count in the water between 7.0 and 7.6.
Another important fact to consider is the temperature of the water of the fish tank. When it’s about freshwater puffers, the tank water temperature should be between 74° and 78° of F.
These two water conditions are really important to give a better life for your puffer fish inside a home aquarium. You can control the heat of the water using a proper aquarium heater. I am not going to write about any heater hear because the aquariumfreaks.com would share some good detail articles about aquarium accessories soon in future posts.
The fish tank water needs to be cleaner. It is better to do at least 10% water change every week and do 25% tank water change every month would be ideal.
To control the cleaning water you can also set up a proper filter system to your fish tank.
As wrote earlier in this post, the puffer fish has various types live in freshwater as well as in marine water. You should be careful not to mix salt/marine water with the freshwater puffer types.
This fish is easily get into diseases, So keeping the water condition well is a must when caring for freshwater puffer fish.
The size of the aquarium is changing with the puffer types. Most smaller puffers need to have minimum 10 gallons fish tank it can go up 55 gallons with the type of puffer fish. I will share those details under next heading which is mosy famous freshwater puffer fish types.
A planted tank setup is good with most puffer types. But if it not required. The rock-based environment also will look good with this awesome freshwater fish.
Most famous types of common puffer fish for aquariums
As I wrote in a previous paragraph, There are almost 150 types of puffer fish in the world. From the around 30 types are lives in freshwater.
From those 30 these puffers are most famous and widely used as aquarium puffer fish. I will add a minimum tank size for each in front of the name.
- Crested Puffer: 55 gallons tank
- South American Puffer: 25-40 gallons tank
- Congo Puffer: 40 gallons tank
- Dwarf Puffer: 10 gallons tank
- Imitator Puffer: 10 gallons tank
- Mbu Puffer: 400 gallons tank
- Golden Puffer: 125 gallons tank
- Red-Tailed Dwarf Puffer: 20 gallons tank
- Fang’s Puffer: 20 gallons tank
- Nile or Fahaka Puffer: 105 gallons tank
- Mekong Puffer: 30 gallons tank
- Emerald Puffer: 10 gallons tank
- Redeye Puffer: 20 gallons tanks
- Striped Puffer: 125 gallons tank
- Palembang Puffer: 40 gallons tank
- Target puffer : 40 gallons tank
- Ocellated puffer : 50 gallons tank
- Pea puffer : 10 Gallons
These are the most common puffer types and their minimum tank sizes that is recommended. So you can get a clear idea about what minimum tank size you need for puffer variations u prefer.
I am not going to add details about each type in this article, but I will write a new post about freshwater puffer fish types soon.
conclusion
In this post, I tried to give a clear idea about the freshwater puffer fish. I wrote the basic details that any puffer fish lover should know.
I added the care details for the freshwater puffers and share some important facts you should know as a puffer fish lover.
Caring them is bit hard but having will be a lot of fun. So I think you feel this article useful and updated your knowledge about this awesome freshwater fish by reading my article.
Please use below comment box to share your suggestions and share this article with your friends. Happy Puffer Time!
