The Puffer Forum

Hi all I'm looking a little advice with my fahaka called Doofus. Had him now for 4 weeks in a community tank (have another 300 gallon tank for when he's a bit bigger)
I know it's not recommended to keep puffers with othe fish but he's so small at the min I didnt think he would be much of a threat to the other fish. So far he and the other guys have been fine Doofus is about 1.5 inches long.
This week on Thursday I noticed him being a bit less active and it's continued, he still eats well on a diet of spectrum sinking pellets, bloodworms and daphnia. I added a few snails, shrimps for him to eat if he takes the notion but as he is so small I haven't seen him near any of them yet. One snail has turned up dead and eaten out of his shell so perhaps Doofus did it, I just don't know.

The water parameters are
Ph 7.6
Ammonia nitrates and nitrites are all zero.
Temp 25.6
Tank mates are 2 balla sharks, 2 redline torpedos and a pair of mollies.

No fish except Doofus are showing any negative signs at all.
Doofus is (in my eyes) quieter than usual lurks in one of two spots whereas he used to swim around investigating everything in the tank and appears to be breathing fast. There are 2 large air stones in the tank so I can't see oxygen being an issue and no other fish are showing signs of oxygen deficiency either. He is still eating anything that goes into the tank, his belly is nice and plump.
I did a water change on Friday and I'm considering another one now about 50% but I'm unsure what I should try.

Any advice as to what might be the issue here?

You didn't mention the tank's size? I can't believe you'd risk those $$$ redlines with him! It's been 18 years since mine was a juvie, so I really don't remember how active he was but for the most part, he just hangs round in his cave until feeding time.

Fahakas get spooked pretty easily. Tank changes or noise. Mone likes floating plant cover or he's inactive. I would check the ammonia and nitrates as he will suffer first.

He could be sulking, as a Juvie mine was really active. Didn't really slow down until he was around 9". Small fahakas have been known to murder much bigger fish, not much if anything is truly safe with 99% of fahakas

Sorry it's a 250l tank
He's still very young and small that he can't really bother any other fish even if he wanted to, for the first two weeks I was watching like a hawk and only seen one instance of him being annoyed and to be fair the other fish did try to swim through him and shoved him into the gravel so he got a tad cheesed and nipped his tail. Since then he hasn't bothered another soul so I'm hope it he is going to play nice at least until my other tank is cycled etc.

As an update nothing much has changed, perhaps not feeding as much as he had been but still going out the odd time for a slow swim whereas before he was quite active.
His belly seems fine, appetite is ok and water parameters are all zero, ph 7.6 -7.8. 2 air stones running 24/7 and an eheim classic 350 external filter and a hydro 30 internal filter.
No fish are sick or have died and the fahaka was the last one added.

He might be perfectly happy but the heavy breathing is annoying me, the lfs I got him from also tested my water and got the same results I did and said he pretty much sat about in there for the 6 weeks they had him too so they don't think anything is amiss.
My substrate is gravel and I was thinking of maybe adding an area of sand incase he would rather bury himself ?
Could his early activity have been stress and now it's settled down after a couple of weeks and he's now chilled out and going back to lazy mode???

Thank you all for taking the time to reply I didn't know the topic had been approved and was watching emails waiting for an approval message, instead of just coming back to the forum lol

Is it possible to add videos to a post to show his breathing??

He may be acting like a model citizen right now, but expect to wake up to total carnage one day. I've seen a 4" fahaka bite an 8" pleco in half!

he can and will have a tank of his own. I'd like to see him in the long term. I guess I'm just worried about him at the moment, I had a bad time getting the tank up and running in the early days due to bad advice and lost some fish which pissed me off and I'm loving watching them all happy and growing now so I would like that to continue.

so do you guys think a corner of sand would help little Doofus feel happier? I was thinking of dumping some in until its about 2 inches deep on top of the gravel or I could sift the gravel out of a corner and make his sandy area even deeper?

A 1.5" fahakas can maim a big fish, seen it. Deep sand is unlikely to help. Can you not yet some of the filter media from the tank he is in to seed your new filter? Could have it up and running in no time with a small puffer like yours

How large is his final tank?

I have a 500 litre unnamed tank out in the garage just needing a filter and a cabinet made but it's a bit large in the room and I don't think he is going to get to that size for a while so I'm considering a 350 litre rio, or a custom made drop off style tank although the plan for the drop off was always to have it as a community tank in my living room and I think I want to stick with that idea. For the short term I have options given how small he is. I'm not going to have a dedicated fish room so I need to do a more 'built in' style of something in my office that still gives me storage and usability in the area.

No change in him today, he was out and about last night chomping on bloodworm and a few spectrum pellets. I'm starting to think he's happy enough even tho the breathing is quite fast compared to everyone else.