OK,
This might not be the rarest fish, but they sure are one of the more popular in tanks for fish only with live rock. Yes, it’s unfortunate they are definitely not reef safe as they are capable of devour anything that can fit through the mouth with shell- snail, clam, scallop, shrimp, crab, you name it!
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| Dogface Puffer as seen on Live Aquaria |
Found this guy at Liveaquaria- I have seen many dog face puffers but never one this dark and handsome! And at a very affordable price (for salt water fish anyways)!
I don’t think I need to write too much about how to keep this fish- proper seawater level, proper temperature, probably not a ton of water flow since they aren’t fast swimmers. But they are very hardy and rarely come down with diseases. The only disease I’ve encountered with this species in the past is pop eye, which could have been caused by an injury.
Although you never have to worry about this fish not eating, feeing the right thing is the key to success. All puffers have a “beak” like mouth that, without shellfish to grind it down, will grow infinitely. So if you are used to feeding only artificial flake/pellet food or even shrimp, your puffer may eventually suffer starvation from not able to eat with its over grown beak.
I have personally seen people take their puffer out of the water, take a grinder to grind down the beak- no joke!
So then what can you do to help grind this down? Well, the natural diet of a puffer is mainly made of shellfish. So the most economic way is to hit up your local grocery store and get some clams. Crab legs would be a nice workout for them to crack and grind down as well.
You can also purchase some high-protein mix and freeze it inside the clam shells to entice the puffer to “chew” it down.