PZ's not eating

[goldielocke76]

Hey guys,

So, the last week or so, PZ has hardly eaten, if at all. The only thing she really picks at, or can be voracious with, is bloodworms. There are days though, that she won't even touch them. She ignores brine shrimp, snails, tubifex worms, and the daphnia. With the exception of the snails, all of the above are frozen cubes, and soaked in some tank water with FW V-C before feeding them to her. I'm getting a little frustrated, because I am watching her become skinnier and skinnier, and I feel at a loss. I have even tried putting in garlic, and she just ignores it. Any suggestions?

[bertie 83]

Try without the vitamins for 1 feed as she may not like the taste. Sorry not is all good at mo. Could I ask for water params? I don't doubt all is ok tho

[goldielocke76]

Try without the vitamins for 1 feed as she may not like the taste. Sorry not is all good at mo. Could I ask for water params? I don't doubt all is ok tho

Of course you can ask! =) I will just answer all the hospital questions as a just in case type thing.


1) Your water parameters:
-PH: 7.4-7.6 (I tested both PH and for high PH and got two very distinctive answers, so I put both)
-Ammonia: 0
-Nitrites: 0
-Nitrates: > 5 ppm (just did a 50% wc today, so it's probably at 0

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.
-10 gallons, it has 3 otocinclus, 1 ghost shrimp

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)
-I feed her usually a few bloodworms in the morning, as many as she will eat. Sometimes I try daphnia, tubifex worms, brine shrimp, snails and mysis shrimp, but normally she ignores all but
the bloodworms.
-I do a 50% water change every Saturday and use Prime to treat the water. Water is always about 81-82 degrees F. Right now it's at 81.2 Other than that, nothing else has been added to the
tank.

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.
- Not too much. I just swapped around all her decorations today. I put in the 3 Otos 2 weeks ago and took out the nerites that were in there. One of the ghost shrimp died about 2.5 weeks
ago. (I am assuming that the bigger ghost shrimp had something to do with that).

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it?
- Tank was cycled by seeding the tank with the stuff that was in the 5 gallon (all of it). PZ was in the 20 gallon during this time which was cycled. I also added tank water from the 20g to the
10 gallon during this time. It's been set up for almost a 2 months now. It finished cycling about 3 weeks ago.

I just fed her bloodworms from Hikari, and she ate about 5 of them. Finally, it's nice to see a round little tummy on her. Maybe it's the brand? I am not sure. My concerns are still there though, I worry about the lack of variety in her diet (although LFS said that they only feed bws to their DPs) and I still worry about her clamped little tail. I see it unclamp at random times during the day, but it never stays unclamped (maybe I am just worrying about this too much, but I don't know). She also seems less personable of late. I thought having a puffer was going to be stressful in general, but Luau is a little sweetheart, and eats like a pig. I guess just the little DPs are more finicky. I just don't like to see her unhappy or stressed because it stresses me out, bad. PZ leaves the otos alone, and leave the ghost shrimp alone (who is now bigger than she is). I always put in enough food for her and the shrimp, so there is never any competition for food. And there is so much algae in the tank that the Otos are in algae heaven.

I don't know guys. I just wish she would flare her tail and eat other things LoL.

[goldielocke76]

Look! LoL see, she does flare her tail once in a while:

http://denzil.smugmug.com/Pets/Puffers/ ... 99g8G-A-LB

[sevenyearnight]

She's so cute!

[edmlfc1]

Annabelle is very picky. She wants crab everyday. Of course she don't always get what she wants and sometimes she will go on a hunger strike. I usually win. Have you every tried feeding her mussels or clams? My dp's would devour them. I scrapped off most of the meat so that had to scrape their teeth on the shell and I would feed the meat to Elvis (S&S puffer). They also had some baby clams I found at drsfostersmith. Here's the link: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... atid=23691
They are about the size of a nickel. Just right for a couple of dp's.

[goldielocke76]

Annabelle is very picky. She wants crab everyday. Of course she don't always get what she wants and sometimes she will go on a hunger strike. I usually win. Have you every tried feeding her mussels or clams? My dp's would devour them. I scrapped off most of the meat so that had to scrape their teeth on the shell and I would feed the meat to Elvis (S&S puffer). They also had some baby clams I found at drsfostersmith. Here's the link: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... atid=23691
They are about the size of a nickel. Just right for a couple of dp's.

Thank you for the link! I will have to look into it, unfortunately, my BF and I have set up "hobby budgets" for ourselves to make sure that we are putting money into savings every month. Unfortunately, as of this month, those fall out of the budget (because of shipping LoL). But I will definitely look into it, I had no idea they could eat things like that. I think PZ hunger strikes, although she wins every time because she won't eat at all unless she has bloodworms. Hopefully she will like something like a clam, and maybe Luau will too....

She's so cute!

Thanks seven! (aha! Finally figured out how to double quote!)

So do you guys think she's fine and I am just stressing out way too much about it? edmlfc1, do your DPs' tails stay at full flare all the time? I can't believe that I got that flare shot, she hardly ever does that, and when she sees the camera, she normally runs and hides LoL.

[edmlfc1]

I don't have my dp's anymore but no they hardly ever flared their tails. Even Annabelle doesn't flare that often. After a water change she is full flared! I noticed that the clams are on back order anyway until Nov 16th. But you can get one of the smaller bags once they get them in just to try it. It should last you a month or two, you will just have to feed 1 clam at a time. You can also look for them at your lfs. They may carry it. Mine does, and I think I found them at petsmart once. I can't remember.

[bertie 83]

All seems in check, just as I expected lol. Maybe just a fussy puffer.

[J-P]

mine is a very picky eater also and only goes for live foods. So it has to by TINY before he will eat it.

[goldielocke76]

Ok, so it's good to know that she's not just unhappy and that I was doing something wrong. I'm just going to chalk it up to her being an incredibly stubborn booger. I can understand that, since every living person and animal that lives in our 660 sq ft is incredibly stubborn.

Found out this morning that neither of my puffs like tubifex worms = / gotta see if my friend with a betta wants them LoL. Or maybe the gsp will eat them.....anyways. To try to give my puffs a better variety of food, I went out to Michael's last night looking for a tiny container with multiple compartments, also had lids and were fairly easy to open. This is what I found:

http://denzil.smugmug.com/Pets/Puffers/ ... rLwGd-A-LB
http://denzil.smugmug.com/Pets/Puffers/ ... cKvVV-A-LB

It is not completely spill proof (however better than what I had) but it is about the size of my palm, so it's small enough. One cube of each food fits in there perfectly. I put a cube in, a few drops of Vita-chem, put it back in the fridge (did this all last night) to thaw. This morning feeding was easy! LoL and Luau got to try a tiny bit of each. The only thing that's not in there is the Daphnia right now.

On a side note, turns out that we may have to move anyways. We just got the notice of our rent increase.....including the dogs, rent has now jumped to $1600 a month. We are going to try to talk them down, but I shudder at the thought of moving again....especially since I just got the 60g up and running..../gulp

[J-P]

rent has now jumped to $1600 a month. We are going to try to talk them down, but I shudder at the thought of moving again....especially since I just got the 60g up and running..../gulp

OMG!! that is $400 more than I make in a month!

Have you tried live blackworms yet?

[goldielocke76]

rent has now jumped to $1600 a month. We are going to try to talk them down, but I shudder at the thought of moving again....especially since I just got the 60g up and running..../gulp

OMG!! that is $400 more than I make in a month!

Have you tried live blackworms yet?

No, should I try live food? I was afraid of her getting IPs....I wouldn't be so afraid if she wasn't such a pita to treat, but last IP tx experience was miserable. I would love to give both my puffs live food though. Any recommendations?

Oh yeah, and rent is a scary thought. I wish I wish I wish I wish x 10^10 that we had our own house. At least we would be paying for something that WE own, and not someone else = /

[J-P]

I'd try anything. After loosing one to starvation it is heart breaking. Or red cherry shrimp fry...

[goldielocke76]

I'd try anything. After loosing one to starvation it is heart breaking. Or red cherry shrimp fry...

I will look into it. She's finally eating, I did try to offer her BWs without meds. Yesterday she wouldn't touch them, today she did. I also caught her stealing the ghost shrimp's bw that he was munching on earlier today. She's finally fatter looking, but, I won't rest easy until she stays fat for a couple of days LoL. I love her to forever and back, but damn, she's picky. I am glad that I got her before I got Luau. My experiences with her have been invaluable, and makes caring for Luau look easy! LoL, bring on the GSP!!! xD