The adventures of Chungus the humpback puffer

Let us know how that goes!

 

@kiaan26 out of interest PM the details of the LFS.

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Update on trying to keep Chungus with other fishes. Very unsuccessful. All the fry have disappeared. And a bit of tail fin is missing from the convict. Luckily it will grow back with time. The convict decided that jump the sponge barrier to get away from Chungus.
So he will stay by himself. I was hoping to get something to help with algae on the plants in the tank.
Anybody with excess snails? I was thinking of trying a nerite or a mystery snail but i think I know how it will end up. So I will probably try add some ramshorn snails to my snail breeding tank which surprisingly has two yoyo loaches and about 500 trumpet snails.

 

Perhaps try 1 nerite snail, a large zebra. Yes if you add a lot of ramshorns at once, the colony might survive his predation, not sure. I could’ve helped you with ramshorns but a bit far

 

I have a few ramshorn snails but they're tiny. But a mystery snail would be a better trial snail than a nerite. I've used a sinker to attach to his food. And he's attacked it a few times. So I will probably be feeding him an expensive snail.

 

His tank already had a colony of trumpet snails but they normally hide in the soil and now the big one rarely come out at night. Lots of tiny ones though.

 

Yup that’s normal behavior for trumpets. They’re very good for keeping substrate clean (above and below surface) but for algae on leaves and hardscape etc ramshorns are much better.

 

So a couple of weeks back I was at a LFS in Kyalami and they had a tank full with GSP and one loan pleco. Seems these particular GSP were not interested in the pleco, or had not figure out yet it could be a meal. Any how they took it our once I alerted them to this, but I recon it must have been in their for a few days already. So maybe a large enough pleco? I cannot try it with my GSP as he lives in brackish water and this would certainly kill a pleco. I also have the same algae problem and its pointless to put any types of snails in at all as he will simply just eat them.

I also got tones of MTS snails but he eats them as well and if I did put substrate in the the tank he would just simply wait for them and hunt them and eat them, its in their nature to hunt. So their are only shells in his tank and this helps to keep the Ph buffered and also I clean the front glass once a month so it seems to also keep the algae at manageable levels as well.

I think with the GSP, or at least with mine if I were to put in another fish bigger than him say like a large pleco he most likely would not go after it, as he seems to panic and get stressed out if I put anything in his tank that is foreign and bigger than him, like when I need to vacuum the tank he will hide away. I have seen in Corry's Videos from Aquarium-Coop that he has guppy's in the tank with that large fresh water puffer they call Murphy and Murphy apparently does not eat them. According to his video, its a symbiotic relationship between the guppies and the large puffer, as the guppies help to keep the tank clean by feeding off his poop!

Anyhow maybe their is something you can put in their with him thats bigger than him to do algae control and general cleanup.

 

If a puffer wants a bite it wants a bite... Tetraodon schoutedeni are probably the friendliest species by far

Chungus is cute btw!

 

He doesn't like tank mates. He used to be in a 1.8m tank with large cichlids and a large pleco. He killed a 15cm Malawi but it could be that he was starving as well as he was out competed for food.
I tried a few pleco fry they disappeared as well.

Fish have different personalities. There are 2 arowanas at 2 different shops. One will willing take food from your hands even jumping out the water. While the other is scared of everything. And they're probably from the same supplier.

Also different puffer species have different behaviour due to what they eat, their size and how often they get feed.

 

I was actually looking for a supplier for them but Chungus was at the shop for a while.

 

They are not readily available here, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too expensive for people here. We all know how cheap we are..

 

I was looking for suppliers from the Congo. I found one or two and then I had university stuff to do so the idea was sidelined.

 

Ah shame man. Then here I am trying to String only R450 for a poly
How much were you looking at for a congo fish?

 

I was probably expecting the supplier cost to be about R1000 each excluding other costs such as taxes, transportation and licenses.

 

I've seen import costs on some polys. They really get expensive when they're colour and finage morphs.

 

Not terrible

This is just a standard captive bred delhezi. It does get pretty hectic though! I managed to snatch a wild caught senegal for 120 bucks a while ago

 

I also have a pea puffer and he's a little monster when the lights go off. Likes nipping at fins and and taking tiny chunks out of fish bellys. But then he's fine with shrimp and khuli loaches.

 

So I now have a raft made of tiny trumpet snails.

 

I just had a Katydid fly into my room and chirped surprisingly loud for the last 30 minutes. Guess who got a snack.