Canthigaster papua

Canthigaster papua, commonly known as the Papuan toby, is small pufferfish. Their base colour is brown to orangish and it’s covered in turquoise spots which flow into stripes on the top of the head and their backs. Just below the dorsal fin is a large spot. This puffer shows variation in the amount of stripes over their range and looks very similar to C. solandri, but a little more intense coloured.

Pufferfishes are very intelligent fish and will quickly learn to recognize you and your behaviour. Their intelligence and behaviour make you soon treat these animals more like a dog than a fish. C. papua are one of the friendliest pufferfishes, usually living solitary or as a couple, but they remain pufferfishes so each individual can have a different temper. In a tank they can best be kept alone or as a mated couple/harem to prevent territorial fights.

Although these are one of the most reefsafe pufferfishes, they can always nip certain corals till the point that they die. In nature they feed mainly on sponges, bristleworms and algae but they also eat worms, shrimps, mollusks, coralline red algae and corals from time to time! So make sure to offer them a varied diet of meaty foods and algae to minimize the damage to corals.