Redeye puffer

Care at a glance

Overview

A small but feisty puffer at around 6 cm, it can live in a planted tank from about 54 litres for a single fish. Keep it at 24 to 28 C and pH 6.0 to 7.5. Males are very territorial, so keep one male alone or with several females in a larger, well-planted tank, and avoid slow long-finned tankmates it may nip. Feed small hard foods such as snails, bloodworm and other frozen meaty items.

In the wild

The redeye puffer is a small freshwater puffer with red eyes and, in males, a red belly and a dark back stripe. Males can raise a small keel on the belly and back when displaying. It lives among leaf litter and plants in slow, shady water.

Good to know

Carinotetraodon lorteti reaches only about 6 cm, one of the smaller puffers. Males are far more colourful than the plainer, rounder females. Like all puffers it can inflate and its tissues can hold tetrodotoxin.

Did you know

A displaying male can raise a ridge along his belly and back, a keel that gives the genus Carinotetraodon its name.

Related species

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  Red-tail dwarf puffer

  Carinotetraodon irrubesco

  1.8 in (4.5 cm)17 gal (65 L)72–82°F (22–28°C)

• 

  Dwarf pufferfish

  Carinotetraodon travancoricus

  1.1 in (2.9 cm)15 gal (55 L)72–82°F (22–28°C)
• Golden puffer

  Auriglobus modestus

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• 

  Figure Eight Puffer

  Tetraodon biocellatus

  3.1 in (8 cm)20 gal (75 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)

• 

  Green spotted puffer

  Dichotomyctere nigroviridis

  5.9 in (15 cm)32 gal (120 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  Ceylon puffer

  Dichotomyctere fluviatilis

  6.7 in (17 cm)34 gal (130 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)