Figure 8 puffers devouring amazon sword plants

[krebsderek]

Hello, first post so I will give a little information on my tank, setup and fish.

I have two baby figure 8 puffers less than an inch long in an over-filtered 10 gallon aquarium that is temporary until I finish building a custom 50 gallon tall with DIY select pine stand and sump. I'm using ocean direct live sand as a substrate. 15 watt aqua-glo 18000K bulb. Tank was cycled and has been stable for 2 months so far, ammonia, nitrates and nitrites are at 0ppm, specific gravity is 1.002 and water is moderately hard. The pH of my tank is 8.2, I know that it is a bit high but I can't seem to correct it, even doing 50% water changes every week with RO water that reads 7.0, its probably the substrate. I'm not that concerned because they will likely be out of the tank by next week. I feed my puffers a varied diet of frozen blood worms, brine shrimp, live meal worms, and freeze dried blood worms that one of them will eat, the other ignores the freeze dried snacks. They are both getting along pretty well.

As for my problem, I purchased two small amazon sword plants last week to see if I could keep them alive. They seemed to be doing fine until yesterday I noticed some holes in one of the leaves. I wasn't sure what it was until this morning I saw one of the puffers pecking at it. Now at 2:02AM the next day my puffers have utterly destroyed most of the leaves on my plants. I haven't been able to find any threads or any information on figure 8s eating plants. I also don't understand why they chose to suddenly start chomping on leaves considering that I've had these plants for about a week. I feed them at least once a day. Does anyone have any insight into this bizarre behavior?

[Pufferpunk]

LOL, yep--puffers bite holes in plants, supposedly looking for snails in them. Are you sure the nitrate is 0? At this point in a cycled tank, you should be showing some.

[Jivenjune]

Hello, first post so I will give a little information on my tank, setup and fish.

I have two baby figure 8 puffers less than an inch long in an over-filtered 10 gallon aquarium that is temporary until I finish building a custom 50 gallon tall with DIY select pine stand and sump. I'm using ocean direct live sand as a substrate. 15 watt aqua-glo 18000K bulb. Tank was cycled and has been stable for 2 months so far, ammonia, nitrates and nitrites are at 0ppm, specific gravity is 1.002 and water is moderately hard. The pH of my tank is 8.2, I know that it is a bit high but I can't seem to correct it, even doing 50% water changes every week with RO water that reads 7.0, its probably the substrate. I'm not that concerned because they will likely be out of the tank by next week. I feed my puffers a varied diet of frozen blood worms, brine shrimp, live meal worms, and freeze dried blood worms that one of them will eat, the other ignores the freeze dried snacks. They are both getting along pretty well.

As for my problem, I purchased two small amazon sword plants last week to see if I could keep them alive. They seemed to be doing fine until yesterday I noticed some holes in one of the leaves. I wasn't sure what it was until this morning I saw one of the puffers pecking at it. Now at 2:02AM the next day my puffers have utterly destroyed most of the leaves on my plants. I haven't been able to find any threads or any information on figure 8s eating plants. I also don't understand why they chose to suddenly start chomping on leaves considering that I've had these plants for about a week. I feed them at least once a day. Does anyone have any insight into this bizarre behavior?

My GSPs eat seaweed with those clown fish veggie clips. They love it. I toss in a small amount of blood worms after they've finished eating their veggies just so they get a varied rotation in their diet within one time period. When they eat the seaweed, they punch out little holes all over. It's pretty hilarious because it's the only time I see my puffers stretching their beaks and making a kissy face at me.

[LilGreenPuffer]

That pH is perfectly okay. F8s like hard water. Don't try to fix it. You'll just keep swinging from 7.0 to 8.2, and the swings are way worse than the wrong pH anyway. You don't need to use the RO water.