Canthigaster compressa

Canthigaster compressa, commonly known as the Compressed toby, is small pufferfish. Their base colour is white to beige on the belly and greyish to brown on the back. The back is covered in thin blue scribbled stripes and spots and the side is covered in white spots. The eye is usually orange and the caudal fin yellow. They’ve a dark spot around the dorsal fin.

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. compressa are one of the friendliest pufferfishes, which even forms groups sometimes, 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 filamentous green 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.