Dec 14, 2007

Puff the Magic Fishy

I am something of an amateur aquarist, meaning that I've accidentally killed enough fish and rehabilitated enough fish and gone through enough equipment failure and water chemistry debacles to be the guy that people come to for advice. So, when one of our resident ichthyologists, Rasmus, sent me this article from Practical Fishkeeping, I jumped on it.

The article is on a pufferfish keeper by the name of Ian Jeffries. His story is much like my own: he got a tank, got hooked, got kids (the chitluns love fishies), and got more hooked. And, like myself, he gravitated towards the uglier of the species available. His fish of choice: freshwater pufferfish (nine different species). The one below is known as the hairy puffer. Me likey and me wanty.

As an interesting aside, Ian has to trim their teeth too keep them from getting too long. I would love to see that kind of grooming in action.


Thanks for the link, Rasmus.

Photo source: Practical Fishkeeping

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, do you think that fish just holds still and opens his mouth for his dental appointment?

Anonymous said...

This IS truly a face only an aquarist could love. Do they bite?

Anonymous said...

Hmm.. does the guy feed them snails? I thought the hard snail shells was supposed to help keep their teeth ground down when they chomped into them?

Anyways.. I love the leeps! Looks like it's puckering to kees someone! lol

Anonymous said...

Ok I read the article.. prolly should've read it before I commented lol
I didnt realize there were so many fresh water puffers
very interesting

Morgan said...

I thought puffer fishes where sea fish.. i have seen them in a saline acquarium.. what i love most about them is that when they move their box like body, it looks very much like a helicopter manuer.

Anonymous said...

I can only imagine the wrestling involved with trimming their teeth. And I thought trimming my Beagles' toenails was tough...