What You Should Know Before Getting A Porcupine Puffer

The first thing to do before you buy a porcupine puffer is to make sure you have a big enough system to handle his size. Porcupine puffers are wide and bulky fish that can reach an adult size of well over a foot long. They are also inefficient eaters who make a lot of waste.

As with all fish, you should always consider the adult size of the porcupine puffer when deciding to put one in your marine aquarium. To stay happy and healthy, a porcupine puffer's tank should be no smaller than 100 gallons both so he has room to swim and to allow for enough biological filtration to handle his waste.

Don't bring your porcupine puffer home until you have a big, cycled saltwater aquarium to put him into.

Because porcupine puffers make so much waste, be prepared to do a lot of water changes to remove this waste even if you have a plenum or other nitrate removing device in your aquarium. I'd recommend changing no less than 20% of your puffer's water weekly to keep up with his waste production.

You can also keep the water more pure by removing any uneaten food and any visible waste using a tank vacuum to suck it out. If you feed frozen food, be sure to thaw the food thoroughly and discard any water it may have been packed in. The melt water usually contains food juices that will spoil quickly in your porcupine puffer's tank. Some aquarists also claim that feeding dry food can create more waste problems as it is not as completely broken down by your fish's digestive tract as fresh or frozen foods are.

Although his temperament is mild in regard to other fish porcupine puffers are carnivores. Snails, crabs and hermit crabs, clams, barnacles, and shrimp of all kinds are all part of a porcupine puffer's natural diet.

Keep in mind that porcupine puffers are predators so some saltwater aquarium inhabitants might be seen as food rather than tank mates. Corals, however, are a very individualized matter. Some porcupine puffers will eat or bite some or all types of coral while other individuals will leave coral alone. Soft fleshy polyps of any sort are particularly tempting, even if not edible, most porcupine puffers with take a little taste.

The teeth of porcupine puffers continue to grow their entire lives and must be ground down by the food they eat to prevent overgrowth which can prevent your puffer from eating. To keep your porcupine puffer's teeth healthy, feed him crunchy foods such as mussels, clams, crab, snails or shrimp - all with their shells still on - at least several times per week and preferably at every feeding.

Do not feed fish, live or dead, to porcupine puffers. Fish are not part of their natural diet and can cause several problems. Feeding fish to puffers may cause something called fatty liver disease, a usually fatal ailment. Not only that but the nutrient balance in fish flesh is very different from that found in mollusks and crustaceans, a puffer's natural prey. Feeding fish, especially live feeder fish, to your porcupine puffer can also unnaturally accustom him to eating fish, making him a danger to future tank mates.

Porcupine puffers have a dual natural defense mechanism. They are called puffers for a very good reason - they fill their bodies with water when frightened. This causes their bodies to look huge and their spines to stick out. Many a predator would change his mind when faced with a weird spiky ball instead of the fish he saw a moment ago or spit out a little morsel that suddenly sprouted sharp spines.

The puffer in the picture, Porky, is only partly puffed. It is very hard to photograph him in a puffed up state as he comes swimming over begging for food as soon as he sees me, deflating along the way. Don't try to scare your porcupine puffer into puffing, it's very stressful to them when they puff in a panic. Given time, you'll eventually see him puff, an occurrence more frequent in very young puffers. It is thought that they puff occasionally to keep their skin flexible and to clean off built up debris that gets on their spikes which usually lay flat and mostly inside their skin.

Their other defense mechanism is poison. Porcupine puffers have a deadly toxin in their internal organs called tetrodotoxin. This makes it unlikely that a fish that eats a porcupine puffer will ever eat another. Each puffer contains enough toxin to kill several human beings.

Oddly enough, the neuro-toxin in puffer flesh is exactly what entices foolhardy gourmands to eat fugu, or sashimi made from puffer fish. In very tiny quantities, the toxin causes tingling and euphoria - and sometimes death.

So, don't eat your pet puffer!

Their lifespan in the wild is unknown but with proper care porcupine puffers can live from 10 to 15 years in captivity. As these fish are relatively slow growing and take years to reach maximum size, and because of the large size of some specimens observed in the wild suggest it is likely that they have a similar maximum lifespan in the wild.

Your porcupine puffer should outlast the average wild puffer, having the advantage of plentiful appropriate food, protection from predators, and treatment for parasites and diseases. The disadvantage your porcupine puffer will have is a small living area, even in the largest of tanks but your careful upkeep and attention to water quality can offset that stress.

Like many species of saltwater fish, porcupine puffers should not be housed with others of their same species, which in the aquarium hobby are called con-specifics. If you put more than one porcupine puffer in the same tank it will likely lead to the death of one or both of the puffers.

Porcupine puffers are usually pretty mild-mannered towards other types of fish. I'd suggest avoiding very tiny fish which, although porc puffers aren't piscivores, might be mistaken for food. I'd also suggest avoiding anglers and frogfish as puffer tank mates. The little worm-like wiggling lure atop their heads would be too much for any carnivorous fish to resist.

Lionfish are often paired with porcupine puffers but it's a combination I do not approve of. Lionfish have a tendency to stab any fish that frightens them with their venomous spines and porcupine puffers can seem intimidating due to their excessive curiosity.

Large species of fish make the best tank mates for porcupine puffers. Tangs, angels, eels, engineer gobies, foxfish, and squirrelfish all make good tank mates for the puffer. Medium sized fish that get along well with porcupine puffers include hawkfish, large clownfish, and wrasses.

Most invertebrates other than corals will be seen as food and some fleshy coral polyps will be as well.

My porcupine puffer lives with a Regal Tang and a Purple Tang (pictured) in a tank with a frogspawn coral, encrusting montipora, several fungia coral, a favia coral, zoanthids, and an elegance coral.

Porcupine puffers are one of the most personable types of saltwater fish. They quickly learn to come to those who feed them. Porcupine puffers can also learn that doing a little dance or spitting water above the surface can get your attention and may earn treats. However, don't give in to their begging too often as overfeeding can cause serious health problems.

This little guy, my Porky, is at the surface begging for food.