New puffer! Hopefully an Abei!

[Troender]

Last week I got a new puffer in the house. He is supposed to be an Abei, but I don’t have any pictures yet. He does not want to have his picture taken. I had expected to get an adult puffer, but he is tiny! And he clearly has IPs. I wanted him to settle in before medicating him. But today I will. And I hope my medication isn’t too old. It’s been years since I medicated against IPs, and getting such medicines in Norway is impossible. They’re not even legal to import if you are not a proffessional either. The one I have, I sort of smuggled into the country years ago. I probably have to do it again. Well enough about that. My (hopefully) Abei is called Eirik Blodøks (Eirik Bloodaxe - he was Norway’s second King). He is a strange dude indeed. So far he has been shy and not active at all. Not what I expected from an Abei. I have seen him eat once. Usually I don’t worry about puffers not eating in the beginning. They need time to settle in and get used to eating dead food. I still haven’t had a puffer that I haven’t tricked into eating. But he is tiny and skinny, so this time I am not too confident. My usual trick with a shrimp in a thread in front of the filter outflow doesn’t work, because Eirik doesn’t move up there. The once he ate, I managed to drop the food right in front of him. But with him mostly hiding, that isn’t easy to do. Well, that was a little rant about my worries. I mostly wanted to share my joy about getting an Abei. I had one years ago. But I unfortunately did’t have him for long, as he jumped out of the feeding hole in the cover glass. He panicked because I was hammering something together, and I didn’t find him before an hour had passed. I loved the species though, and have wanted one since then. But Eirik is so different! If it all goes well with him (which I am not too confident at yet), I think we will be very good friends. He does look at me sometimes, clearly wondering who I am. Getting to know new puffers is always exciting, because they have so much personality. You never know who they turn out to be. Well, I just wanted to share my joy. Wish me luck!

[Pufferpunk]

Hey, great to see you here! I would try a live earthworm.

[Troender]

I have planned a trip to town tomorrow, to buy earthworms, but I think maybe it will be difficult to get some that are small enough. And with -10 degrees Celcius (14 degrees Farenheit) outside, there is absolutely no way getting any in the garden. Not until spring. But he has eaten today! I dropped a tiny shrimp tail into his tank, at a place where he could find it. And several hours later it is gone! So at least he eats dead food. I take any improvement I can get. I certainly will drop his food in the same place tomorrow. I medicated him for IPs yesterday, so hopefully that too will improve his appetite. Yesterday I even saw him swimming around a little bit. But when he saw me, he went into hiding, and has been hiding ever since. Well, he has had a rough time, little one. He came from Sweden when I got him, so he had been travelling a long way. And he is wild caught, so he has travelled from Asia at some point too. No wonder he is a bit shy. I think I love him already, so I hope it all turns out well.

[Pufferpunk]

He should be able to tear at an earthworm but I chop them up for my DPs.
Does he have a cave?

[Troender]

He doesn’t have a cave, but a wooden root he hides under. It’s his favorite place.

[Troender]

I went to town to buy earthworms today, and they were out! That can happen in the winter. And then they don’t get new ones until spring. So no earthworms for Eirik until spring. That complicates things for Christmas, as I will be away for a while (yes, I know, bad planning - but it was now I had the chance to get him). It’s so much easier to instruct someone to just put an earthworm in his tank.

[Troender]

He ate his dinner today too! I gave him a little more food than yesterday, and he ate half of it. So it seems we have agreed on a feeding place. And that it is too early to increase the amount of food he gets. But he has eaten two days in a row, which is very good news.

[Troender]

He ate his dinner again today. He came and got it right after I left his tank. When I came back, he stopped chewing and dropped his food. Obviously I am still scary. Now he has eaten three days in a row, so my worries about him not eating is gone. He looks much better too, with a full belly. My only concern now is the time I will be gone during Christmas. I have less than two weeks to fattening him up before I leave.

[Troender]

Today’s update: There’s nothing wrong with Eirik’s appetite now! Today he came out less than a minute after dinner was derved, and he even let me watch him eating. And when he does that, I can keep a better eye on his health. And he looks better day by day. The meds against IPs must have worked, even though they were very old. I see him swim around more too. But he is in no way hasty. Everything he does, is done slowly, even hiding when he is scared. But it seems to me that the moving slowly is part of his camouflage, which he is very good at. He is difficult to spot, even when he is close to you. And he moves a lot like the plants around him. Fascinating little guy! Hopefully I soon will get some good pics of him. Because I would like to show him to you.

[Troender]

An update on Eirik. I’ve been gone on Christmas vacation for 2 1/2 weeks, and I was nervous about leaving Eirik for that long. A friend of mine gave him food a few times while I was gone. Yesterday I came home, and Eirik was so hungry that he even didn’t pretend to be hiding. He looked well, just a little thin. But the IPs has clearly gone, and there’s nothing wrong with his appetite! I think he has grown since I got him! So all is well with the little guy. Now all I need is for him to cooperate enough with me, so I can have some good pictures, so I can get an ID on him.

[Pufferpunk]