Last week I bought 6 pufferfish. I didn't add the puffers until after 4 days of just leaving the tank on with the filter running. I have a new 100L tank for them. Inside the tank there is: 3 live plants, 3 plastic plants (which will be removed once the live plants are established and have grown), 2 pieces of driftwood, a floating rock, stones and gravel. I have ordered a granite cave for them as well and will add that once it arrives.
I have one DP that likes to hide under one piece of driftwood all the time and another DP that, for the past two days, has taken to just 'sitting' on the bottom of the tank and they are trying to hide face down in the gravel.
I did a water test (a kit for freshwater that tested nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, PH, high PH) a couple of days ago and everything is within acceptable measures (I didn't write it down but checked the results against the caresheet). The temperature is sitting at around 25/26 - my thermometer is at the furthest end of the tank so closer to the heater it might be warmer. I leave their light on for 7-8 hours a day.
The other 4 DPs seem to be doing absolutely fine though there is one DP who is much more active and eats a lot better than the others. I am feeding them frozen bloodworms and have tried them with mysis shrimps twice (they weren't fans) and I feed them by thawing 1/3 a cube in water and then I use a plastic syringe to distribute the bloodworms. After about 5-10 minutes I use tweezers to remove uneaten food to try and keep the tank clean.
Am I doing the right thing? I don't want to lose any of the puffers. I am quite worried about these two that hide as I don't see them eat a lot. The big DP eats very well by sucking up the bloodworms and then spitting out the see through 'casing' and the others just nibble. Where I live, I can't get live bloodworms but I am waiting to get some snails for them to munch on.
edit: I feed the puffers once a day. I didn't cycle the water. There are only 6 DPs in the tank.
From memory my numbers for the tests were: PH 7.6, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0.25
Dwarf Puffer sitting on gravel
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Dwarf Puffer sitting on gravel
Last edited by moose on Wed Feb 24, 2016 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Pufferpunk
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Re: Dwarf Puffer sitting on gravel
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