Porcupine Puffer

Care at a glance

Overview

Mostly peaceful with fish too large to swallow, but it will eat snails, hermit crabs, shrimp, and other invertebrates on sight, so it is not reef safe and belongs in a fish-only or FOWLR tank. It has a well-earned reputation as one of the more personable large puffers, often recognizing its keeper and begging at the glass at feeding time. Its beak grows continuously, so feed hard-shelled foods such as snails, clams, and shell-on crab or shrimp regularly alongside squid and other meaty fare. Avoid netting it if you can help it: startled or handled roughly, it will inflate and can gulp air that is difficult to release afterward.

In the wild

One of the few reef fish found nearly worldwide in warm water, turning up on grass flats, coral reefs, and around mangroves across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans at depths of about 2–35 m. It spends the day tucked into a cave or ledge and comes out at night to forage over sand and rubble, so it appreciates a tank with a few real hiding spots as well as open room to patrol after dark. Plan on at least 680 litres (180 US gal), since it is a heavy waste producer that needs strong filtration on top of the swimming space.

Good to know

It belongs to the porcupinefish family Diodontidae, named for a beak formed from just two fused tooth plates, one per jaw, rather than the four-plate beak of true puffers in Tetraodontidae. That beak still needs hard food to wear it down. Its long, sharp spines lie flat against the body normally and only stand erect when the fish pumps water into its stomach and inflates, a defense that can double or triple its size in seconds. Unlike Arothron and Canthigaster puffers, it carries only trace amounts of tetrodotoxin, mostly in the ovaries, making it considerably less toxic than its Tetraodontidae relatives, though its flesh is still not safe to eat.

Did you know

When it inflates, folded skin and an oversized, non-digestive stretch of stomach unfurl to hold the extra water, and the stiff, elastic skin around that water-filled core is what forces the spines, normally flat, to snap upright until the fish deflates again.

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