Saddle Puffer; Haw. - Canthigaster coronata

Hawaiian Saddle Puffer

is also known as the Crowned Puffer, Crowned Toby, and Four Bar Pufferfish. Members of the Canthigastergenus are called Sharp-nosed Puffers or Tobies. The Saddle Puffer is light blue ventrally, and the darker dorsal portion is divided by light blue stripes. It lacks pelvic fins but has learned to use the pectoral fins to move about the aquarium.

A 50 gallon or larger, fish-only aquarium is suitable. Its teeth are actually a fused beak-like structure. It may eat invertebrates found in a reef tank.

It has the ability, when threatened or alarmed, to inflate its body to almost twice its normal size. It becomes alarmed when netted, therefore, use a container to transfer it.

The Saddle Puffer needs a varied diet of meaty foods including; squid, krill, clams, and hard shelled shrimp to help wear down their ever growing teeth.

The family of Puffers is a distinct family marked by their ability to ingest water into the ventral portion of their body causing them to blow up for protection. These fish also have incredibly strong plated mouth structures that are used to bite and crush even the toughest shells.Almost all puffers are slow swimming fishes with powerful jaws made up of fused teeth feeding on a variety of slow moving and often hard animals. Also have a poison in their skin, tissues and organs.

The poison is an alkaloid nerve poison.They will do well in a fish-only aquarium. Keep only one per tank.Puffers have bodies that are very rounded and often tapered at the mouth and caudal (tail) fin regions. Color varies, but many species have light spots and or spines.Feeds mainly on mollusks (hard, powerful teeth enable them to break through mollusk shells); also fed on other invertebrates including sponges and coral.

SIZE 2-3 INCHES