The last Puffer disappeared...

A few days ago I introduced 3 Pomacea bridgesi aka the Golden Apple snail. They are adapting very well, always in search for food, grazing over the wood, rocks and glass. In the photo above, one can see how curious this Puffer is. The Puffer bit a couple of times into the snail, but this doesn't seem to be bothering it, since the Pomacea bridgesi continued grazing over the substrate. Snail that feels threatened usually closes it self behind its 'door'.

The last Puffer (the one in the photo), disappeared yesterday. I presume the crabs got him. The fish was very energetic, eating well. I performed weekly 50% water change + the plants are doing great (apart from the Anubias) so water quality is not the culprit, causing this fish to die. I sure hope that one of the crabs that ate this Puffer want die also, since the Puffers meat contains a very powerful toxin called Tetrodotoxin aka the anhydrotetrodotoxin 4-epitetrodotoxin. Apparently, Puffers in captivity can't develop this toxin, but one can not be sure without making lab test. I know one thing though, each time one of the Puffers vanished, I find another dead Crab. Is all this a coincidence? Time will tell. Other Crabs are doing well. At the moment I am feeding the Crabs with Crab sticks only. I am not sure if the cucumber I fed to Crabs cause the deaths. Just out of precaution I will continue feeding them with Crab sticks from Hikari.

Some German aquarists reported keeping Pseudosesarma moeshi with fish like Mollys and Platys without any fish loss...I am not sure about that, even my tiny Macrobrachium tries to catch a fish when passing near by...and Crabs are opportunists...so

Photos by Dusko Bojic.

Moulted exoskeleton

One of my Crabs moulted yesterday (female). Since the last incident (dead crab) everything seem to be in order. I introduced 3 Apple snails to the community. One German aquarist kept them without any problems with Pseudosesarma moeshi. The remaining Puffer seem to be enjoying the crab zoeas and eating them one by one.

Crabs and fish. Good combination?

In the last few days lots happened inside my crab paludarium. Two of my Dwarf Puffers disappeared and I also found one dead crab (female) on the land part.
It has been known that Puffer flesh is poisonous, and that leads me to the conclusion that one of my crabs died because of eating the Puffer. The other Puffer disappeared two days latter, so I am expecting to find another dead Crab. Dead Crabs smell very bad, so all I need to do, every day, is to stick my nose into the tank to check out.

After the dead crab was removed I changed 60% of the aquarium water and introduced some floating Cabomba and Egeria densa, to make sure all possible ammonia is gone.
Two days latter I introduced two more crabs (male and female, now total of 4 crabs).

As one can see on the first 2 photos, the female is carrying eggs under her tail. And just after a day she released the larvae into the water. Yesterday I discovered thousands of tiny, 1mm small, free swimming zoeas all over the tank.
The last photo poorly represents the Pseudosesarma moeshi zoea. It is very hard to make a good photo quality without a back light.


Photos by Dusko Bojic.