Posted by Sarah on February 4, 2010
I finally gave in and got 2 green spotted puffers from the only local store we haven’t tried yet.
The fish looked healthy when we were there, so we waited a few days, and went back and got 2.
We couldn’t find someone from the fish department to help us, and the person we found wouldn’t let us pick out the fish, so we ended up with one that died the night we got it home.
The other fish seems to be doing well in our 55 gallon tank, but I have seen a little blackness on his belly.
I really hope this guy makes it.
Of course he’s not going too.
While I was writing this post we had company – after they left I went to feed the fish, and the puffer is dead.
Fish can be so depressing sometimes.
Posted by Sarah on May 20, 2008
It’s been a long couple of weeks.
My adult australian desert gobies died.
This was somewhat expected, since we’ve had them since the end of January, and they were about full grown then.
These fish are considered to be annuals by most of the people I know that have them, because they only live for twelve to eighteen months.
You’d think that knowing they would die fast would make it easier, but it didn’t.
It still makes me sad to think about it.
In addition to that our Green Spotted Puffers died.
When we got them they seemed to be plump and fat, and healthy.
And they seemed to be the same right up to the end.
Spot and Stripe died about a week apart – the water conditions and everything were fine, and they were swimming around happily, and eagerly eating in the morning, and in the afternoon they were dead.
I don’t know what happened.
I did read about Green Spotted Puffer disease, where the puffers got a black spot on them, then stopped eating and died within 36 hours, but we didn’t notice a black spot on them, and they were both eating the day they died.
Like most cases in fish deaths we’ll probably never know what happened with the puffers.
Green spotted puffers aren’t successfully bred in captivity, so most of them were wild caught.
That probably had something to do with it.
Who knows.
I do know that we recently saw some Green Spotted Puffers that looked happy and healthy swimming around at a local store, where they’d been happy and healthy for two weeks.
It was fun to watch them for a few minutes but I’m not ready for another one anytime soon.
I told my husband that I’m over my love affair with fish since my favorite fish died within a couple of weeks of each other.
Then I told him I’m holding out for seahorses.
Anybody got a 35 gallon column tank for sale?
Posted by Sarah on April 18, 2008
While browsing at The Tropical Fish Shoppe last Friday, I came across a tank filled with adorable Green Spotted Puffers.
Jeff and I had originally considered getting green spotted puffers when we decided to get a puffer, so I was already familiar with their care requirements.
I’d just decided that I didn’t want any Shell dwellers, so I had a fish tank open, with no prospects.
We ended up getting two green spotted puffers, Spot, and Stripe.
I recently read that most dogs are now named “people” names, and the old fashioned names like Spot and Rover aren’t used any more, so I thought it would be funny to name one of the fish Spot.
Besides, they do say puffers are the dogs of the fish world.
Rover just didn’t seem like a good name for a fish, and Stripe has a little line of connected dots along his right side, so Stripe seemed like a good name.
I do keep calling him Spike (Spike is our male adult bushynose pleco), so we might have to change Stripe’s name.
Spot and Stripe are doing very well in their new home, although we are going to have to get some more plants to break up the line of sight so they don’t see each other as much.
Spot tends to chase stripe around, but we haven’t seen any evidence of biting yet.
Biting ususally causes black bruises where the puffer was bitten.
The day after we got the puffers home, Jeff decided he should hold some krill in the tank and wave it around to see if the puffers would eat it.
Spot wouldn’t come near it, but Stripe came out of nowhere to get the krill.
You should have seen how fast Jeff dropped it!
Now both of the Green Spotted Puffers will eat out of Jeff’s hands, although he is careful, since the puffer’s teeth could wound him.
Our Figure 8 puffer, 8-ball doesn’t eat out of Jeff’s hands yet, so Jeff is happy that the Green Spotted Puffers Do 
.
The picture above is a picture of Spot a couple of days after we got him. Isn’t he cute?
Do you have puffers?
What kind, how many, what are their names?
Leave a comment and tell us about them!
