The Puffer Forum

Of my three fahakas, one (the nasty one), was unusuakky active. The other two were much less so. the female was especially quiet.

But the three tanks were set such that they could see each other, which may have affected their activity.

You think the more active ones are also the more aggressive ones? Filbert spends a lot of his day in his cave or just hovering in one spot, chilling out. He also allows many tank mates.

My situation was likely uncommon in hobby situations. I suspect that my nasty was nasty by nature, the equivalent of hyper-dominance seen in some Rift Lake Cichlids. Even without pheremones, the other two fish would likely have been inhibited by the sight of the very active fish, but those tank were also water-linked (a circulating range) and therefore got each other's pheromones as well. Similar circulation in Cichlid tanks does increase male:male territorial display. That nay apply to puffers also. They do share some other behaviors. The egg production in the female may have been influenced by the males or maybe the males were influenced by her egg production, or both ways.

Too little data to even guess intelligently. Not many folks are crazy enough to keep three fakakas. That was ~800 gallons of water for 3 fish!

Pufferpunk wrote:You think the more active ones are also the more aggressive ones? Filbert spends a lot of his day in his cave or just hovering in one spot, chilling out. He also allows many tank mates.

It's a a good observation IMO, but only that, an observation. Mine does not allow any tankmates. The only other fish in his tank is a baby con. He simply hasn't caught it yet, as it hides amongst 2 big sponge filters in the corner of the tank. He does make lunges towards it.

Is he generally pretty active or does he just hang out a lot?

Pufferpunk wrote:Is he generally pretty active or does he just hang out a lot?

Constantly active, except at night and after a big meal.

My puffer does that all the time. In fact he/she is doing it right now

My Fahaka at 7inches now is also very active and is very aggressive only thing in the tank right now is a couple of white clouds as he has killed every algae eater and pleco I have tried.

He'll catch the white clouds eventually too.

i started feeding my fahaka every other day
i came down and he had eaten the 2 neons and 2 danios that had been in there for ages
think he was trying to tell me something?!

When I had my big palembang. He mostly laid around in his cave. It got so bad I used to have to hold a shrimp in a pair of chopsticks and actually bump him on the nose with it. I think I was overfeeding. I cut back the food and he was much more active. Obviously they all have different personalities but I think it is fine balance of not letting them go hungry and perhaps feeding a little too much.

Speaking of large cichlids. I have a big Jack Dempsey alone in a tank and she spends most of her time hiding except for feeding time. I think that why a lot of cichlid keepers use large very fast swimmers as dither fish, keeps the others more active.

This thread is over 2 years old and inactive. Palembang's puffers are lurker-predators, not hunter-predators like GSPs, Fahakas, and Figure-8s. The behavior of the two groups is quite different.

Here's Filbert's usual position:
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When I come up to the tank:
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I've noticed that if I add a ton of pond snails or baby crayfish, in a large enough quantity that they have time to hide, my puffer will be actively hunting throughout the week. This majority of the time (about 4 out of every 5 weeks) however, I feed frozen food once a day, and during these weeks I think he realizes he can just lay on the bottom and get up to eat at feeding time.