The adventures of Chungus the humpback puffer

This thread is going to be about my experiences with taking care of my humpback puffer.

He was returned by a customer at my lps after he killed one of their fish. He was kept in the shop for a while before I decided to take him home. He's currently in a divided 3ft tank. He has about 2ft to himself and rest is my pair of angelfish.


He hasn't really gotten off live foods yet. So I have to move frozen food around the tank to get home to eat. He's a piscivore so his teeth don't grow as rapidly as a fahaka or a mbu. So his tank if full of trumpet snails and I feed him frozen Lance fish and pieces of mussels. I tried a mussel on a half shell and he was scared of the shell.

He's an ambush hunter so most of the time he's an ornament in the tank.

 

Thanks for starting the thread @Kiaan26

He is very cute

Im no expert with puffers but really like them
I would love a pair of MBU's but too scared to even try with my rays so...

Its strange that you say he sits like an ornament most of the day, i thought puffers were very personable and interactive

 

Very interesting fish!!

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He's getting used to me slowly. Most of his interactions with me not giving him food is staring at me and moving his fins a bit. I think to say I'm not dead.

 

My lps brought in a mbu in a few years ago. I wonder what happened to it.

I hope the Chungus will become as interactive as my dwarf puffer who likes to watch me do my assignments next to his tank.

 

He looks really cute!! Will you need to eventually upgrade him to a bigger tank or will he be happy in his 2ft section?

 

Since humpback puffers are ambush hunters they normally sit in one spot for most of the day so they're not an active swimmer. He's only 10cm now but should grow to about 15cm. So the 2ft is fine for now as long as I keep up with my tank maintenance as his food can pollute the tank quickly.

He has a habit of changing the brightness of his colours. Normally when he's stress or unhappy he will be darker. Like after I got him home I cycled with him. He was not amused.

 

I just notice how different the two pictures look. Looks like different fish.

 

He looks quite grumpy here

 

Many of the ambush predator fish hide for long periods of time and especially when still young

As they get older and more confident you find them coming out and interacting more often

 

He is a persistent hunter. I separated them with a sponge divider. I have put a few convict and guppy fry with him. Even though the are smaller than his eye he will still hunt them. So I'm not going to put anything in with him that won't end up being food.

I have also spoke to SalmonAfrica quite a bit already about humpback puffers before getting him.

 

Chungus is not friendly with other fish. I've seen him attack alot of fish. And his tank is too small to try see how he does with another humpback puffer.

 

Bad quality video but that sound.

 

I second that, @Kiaan26 thanks for sharing. I am also very fascinated about puffers. I have read quite a lot about them. They are also very intelligent fish.

Well done on getting him to eat frozen foods.

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@Kiaan26, you planted the seed in my mind with this little googly eye creature lol I might stock a 1.2m tank with them.

 

Well my lps is getting another one. If you're interested I can send you their details.

 

My LFS had three in stock a couple of months. I will order from them if I decide to go this route. I'm scared to courier livestock. Thank you any way for the suggestion.

 

I watch this video and I now want to try get Chungus to live with other fish. So far I've added in a small convict cichlid and a few small guppy fry. It's been 3 days now and he's been showing less interest in hunting the convict cichlid so maybe there's hope for other fish.