The Puffer Forum

Been there and read that, what in particular are you referring me(who?) to?

This site handles all puffers of FW, BW, and SW, not just one species. I can accept that it might seem more confusing to some folks who have not experienced the range of needs across this highly variable family. Although the family is much smaller than the Cichlids, it does have comparable complexity.

I don't seem to have a source for live black worms. Brine shrimp, daphnia and meal worms are all available live, but I don't think these are proper alternatives. Ghost shrimp are available as well, but they are too large I think.

Live blackworms are available at http://www.aquaticfoods.com . Live Brine Shrimp can be used as long as they are gutloaded with enrichment products such as selcon or selco and/or PhytoPlan or algae paste. You can also use live baby crickets gutloaded with veggies, fruits and such to add to their nutritional value.

Thanks for the link Feathers&Fins, unfortunately I am located in Ontario, Canada. It seems to be very hit or miss finding small live food up here.

My DPs ignore shrimp. Some DPs eat smaller-then-Ghost shrimp and kill and eat as much as they can of Ghosts.

its bigger more impressive and there are like 10 new posts in each section in an hour the DP forum takes about a day to get 1 new discussing up to maybe 3-5 posts then theres the section that don't even deal with puffs

PS is there a mark as read button some things i don't want to show up as new because it distracts

Yes, it's at the bottom left, below the last forum.

ty i really need it

So far I have gotten my little dp by on snails from the pet store. He hasn't taken to any of the other food I have available. No freeze dried bloodworms, no thawed krill, no live ghost shrimp, no small fish flakes. I might try some garlic, as I have heard that can initiate feeding...but he spends all day 24x7 looking for food anyway. He just won't eat what I have for him. Black worms don't seem to be an option up here. I can get microworms, but they are too small I think. His belly is no longer nice and round...I'm worried.

Live brine should work (though this is not fully nutritious.) Maybe try beef heart or spirulina brine, most fish love it and cant resist!

Thawed frozen bloodworms might work better than freeze dried ones.

I ordered a beef heart, it takes 2 days to get one apparently. I bought some frozen bloodworms but they also failed.

This morning he died. I am slightly confused, as he no longer looked skinny. Is it possible that he ate something and choked on it? Or that he ate too much of something and then died? Or do puffers sometimes puff a little bit when they pass away? He did not look 'inflated', just the right size. One other thing it might have been was that I crushed a clove of garlic and put it in the filter. I read that this can encourage eating and also improve health of the fish.

It is too late to save him, but I would like to know more about what might have happened.

I did a water test:

pH - 8
Nitrite - 0ppm
Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrate - 3ppm
Phosphate - 1ppm
gH - 7
kH - 3
water smells of garlic

The idea with the garlic is to smear it on the food itself. I don't know if that would have done him in though...

Water conditions otherwise look good.

He may have been too weak from not eating, or the garlic had a negative effect. He may have looked full from swallowing water before he died. Perhaps as a puffing reaction to dying.

sorry to hear about your lose.

Thanks Phaedrus.

The garlic did not have this effect on any other fish. Perhaps if it was the garlic, then puffers are simply extra sensative to it as they are with many other things.


On that note though, my other puffer Lundy, and SAP is behaving very ill as well. Conversely to Mercredi, Lundy has had no problems eating. He ate a healthy portion of krill yesterday. Today he had some sort of twitching spasm, then sank to the bottom of the tank. From there he sometimes tries to swim to the top (as if deprived of oxygen?) only to sink back down again. At the bottom he lies relatively non-mobile and is at the bay of the water current. I tested the water, and all parameters in that tank checked out also. The other fish were perfectly ok. He recently moved into the new 65g (exclusively using cycled filter material from other tanks), so I thought it might be something about the tank and moved him back into his old 15gal as a hospital tank. Again, the water quality checked out. He seems to be doing better, but at the same time not good. Still on the bottom of the tank, but moving his fins more.

Things I wonder now are about the water quality. My test kits could be off, but the other fish appear fine. Since only my puffers have behaved this way, I wonder if perhaps the krill was poisonous in some way. I tried feeding krill to Mercredi(RIP) a few days ago. I fed krill to Lundy yesterday. It has been frozen in ice cube sized portions and has been a reliable food source for Lundy for quite some time. Perhaps Mercredi was just too small to handle any poison that could have been in the krill, and Lundy is big enough to struggle with it. That thought makes me dreadfully worried about Lundy. He's not dead yet though.

Has the krill even been thawed and refrozen? If in doubt, throw it out.

I'd also get your water double checked by the LFS, just to be sure.

Has there been any potential for any chemical contaminents? like hand soaps or lotions, or any sort of spray near the tank or near something that would come into contact with the tank.

BTW, love the names. P)0