Zooey netted this Toby puffer when I took her and her husband Ben torching in late January. We caught some big oama but Toby kept bothering them, probably nipping their fins at night. It was too early in the year to use the oama for bait so I released the oama and kept Toby. Here’s how the torching trip went, complete with short videos.
Well, Toby stopped eating frozen shrimp and I had to feed him/her crushed pipihi (salt water snails) and mussels I gathered on the rocks. Toby doubled in size on this high protein diet but was occupying a tub I needed for oama. Since I couldn’t trust him/her with oama I released Toby yesterday. Can’t really tell how much bigger it is in the photo, unfortunately.
The pipihi have been a nice surprise, staying above water level during the day, and eating algae in the tubs at night. Much more productive than Toby ever was.
Tag Number ?
Hah! I should have tagged that guy yeah?!
Can tell Toby got bigger. More spots too.
But I wanted to tell you about my pipipis. I kept a few in my brackish water opae ula aquarium to keep the glass clean. Soon, the started laying single tiny eggs stuck all over the glass. Suddenly, I had over 38 crawling all over. They grow fairly quickly, and just have to change the water so they have enough minerals in the water to build their shells with.
You have a very good site. Informative, very entertaining, and friendly/good vibes. No need post what I write. I just write what I think might be interesting to you since you share so much with others.
Hi Dave,
Yeah my pipihi had small babies but I didn’t think about the nutrients they needed. I “make” salt water so I’m not sure if there’s enough of a balanced diet for them. I still have a bunch of large pipihi in my tubs, slowly cleaning the ugly brown algae, but a good portion have climbed out of the tubs looking for a better home. I’ve dumped them back in the tubs and most seem to have learned their lesson!
-scott