What to do with a puffer during deep cleaning?

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Headstrng
Dwarf Puffer
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Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2014 9:54 am
Location (country): USA

What to do with a puffer during deep cleaning?

Post by Headstrng »

Hey all. I have a GSP that gets pretty nervous each time I clean the tank...sometimes going black-bellied. He always comes out of it, but I need to get a deep clean in the tank, take out the decor and clean it, do a really good gravel vac, etc. When I do that, it removes his hiding spots and stresses him out (paces, darts, sometime timid, sometimes looking like he could burst towards my hand and bite)

What do you all do when deep cleaning your aquarium? Do you transport them to a small tank / bowl while you do it? Partition it off? Block their view? I think I'm having a glass-working buddy of mine build a tinted-glass partition that I can set in the aquarium gravel so he doesn't see whats going on.
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Iliveinazoo
Fahaka Puffer
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Re: What to do with a puffer during deep cleaning?

Post by Iliveinazoo »

Headstrng wrote:Hey all. I have a GSP that gets pretty nervous each time I clean the tank...sometimes going black-bellied. He always comes out of it, but I need to get a deep clean in the tank, take out the decor and clean it, do a really good gravel vac, etc. When I do that, it removes his hiding spots and stresses him out (paces, darts, sometime timid, sometimes looking like he could burst towards my hand and bite)

What do you all do when deep cleaning your aquarium? Do you transport them to a small tank / bowl while you do it? Partition it off? Block their view? I think I'm having a glass-working buddy of mine build a tinted-glass partition that I can set in the aquarium gravel so he doesn't see whats going on.

I wave my siphon over the sand to get stuff that's lying on the substrate into the water column for vacuuming, I used to take stuff out of the aquarium to clean over the 1st few months of having one but then got lazy and never bothered, my tank hasn't crashed yet and I quite like the look of a little algae on the décor.
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itlagswrx
Puffer Fry
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Re: What to do with a puffer during deep cleaning?

Post by itlagswrx »

Hmmm, this is a good one. You could just try to capture him and set him aside while you do the deep clean; however, only if this doesn't stress him out as much as staying in there. My suggestion would be to just gravel vac, and not move stuff around until he gets comfortable with you gravel-vaccing, and then start out slowly by taking out one decor at a time and see what his behavior is like then.
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