The Puffer Forum

It's obvious you really care about Spot. It also seems you have more advanced resources & are willing to go to any lengths (tube feeding/meds) for him. Most of us are just ling-time hobbiests. Not many even own or have access to a microscope. I'm going to PM the Mentors & see if they can help. They have much more scientific knowledge than I do.

Wow. All my posts finally appeared. I posted those two long ones almost a week ago.

Pufferpunk, thank you for your kind words. Please don't get the wrong idea about me. I'm not more into the hobby than anyone else. Spot is my first puffer, and I have learned a ton just poking around in old threads while I was waiting for my posts to appear. I got the idea to tube feed from this forum. I have one very old microscope. I saw Spot poop some white stuff, and I wanted to see what it was. Like I said, I have no idea what I saw. I just don't want you to think I'm some mad scientist with a lab and tons of resources or something ...just a busy mom with a sick fish.

I finished the API General Cure treatment in Spot's tank. I've done two water changes since then. He's swimming around and acting like himself now, except not eating. I think the whole netting/anesthetizing/beak trimming ordeal was hard on him. Right after all that is when he was looking pretty bad.

I decided to give him a break from treatments, keep his water perfect (the nitrates are down to 10), and see if he will eventually eat. I don't know how long he can go w/o food or where he's getting his energy to swim around. Haven't seen him poop anything white for at least three days. I still haven't seen him eat ANYTHING. It's been three weeks, about.

I don't know what to do from here. I just don't want to do more harm than good, since I really don't know what's wrong w/him.

Thanks, everyone!

Have you offered him live foods?
IDK if this will help or not: library/feeding/problems-feeding-your-puffer/

I feed him live snails and earthworms. Sometimes I feed him live insects...crickets. I haven't been offering anything live since he stopped eating. I just don't like the live food to float around in there. He used to snatch it right up and kill it. That article about feeding puffers (I read it again) is a good reminder that I can/should get more creative. I will try tying food to a string to make it interesting and soaking food in garlic. I will also try feeding more live food. Good ideas. Thanks! I'll let you know how it goes.

I got up this morning determined to try every trick in the article on feeding picky puffers. Oh my gosh! You guys won't believe this. I soaked a good size piece of cockle meat in garlic all morning and then tied it to a string. Spot was hiding in his cave and looking pissed after several failed feeding attempts this morning (snails, worms, blood worms, brine shrimp). I dropped the meat on a string in, and he glanced at it and then ignored it as usual. I gave the string a little tug to make it look alive, and he swam over to it and ate the WHOLE piece of meat. He chomped it up and then tried to eat the string! I'm so happy for him I had tried soaking food in garlic several other times, but the string trick really did it for him, I guess.

I'm interested to see if he'll keep eating like that. I think I'll do ANOTHER (sigh) water change to get all the random "rejected" food out and then try feeding him again with the string and garlic.

How long do you think I should wait before feeding him again?

Thanks!

YIPPEE!!! Another puffer saved, at TPF!
Feed him again this evening.

Hey, everyone. I was so excited that Spot ate on Tuesday morning when I used the garlic soak and tied the food to a string. That worked just that once. He hasn't eaten since. I've been trying to feed him, and he just won't eat. I even tried to feed him a couple cherry shrimp from my FW tank. Poor guys . I'm not sure what to think now. He's still swimming around and acting very hungry. I have some Seachem Metronidazole that I'm tempted to try to tube feed him. Would you guys just wait and see if he ever decides to eat, or would you try to treat for an internal parasite/infection? When I did a round of the API general cure last week, he was pooping that white stuff. I'm just confused. I was really encouraged that he ate, and that was just two days ago. He used to eat every day, though! Also, he just seems frustrated in general (maybe I'm projecting!) like he's hungry but can't believe I keep offering "inedible" food!

I'd appreciate any advice.

Thanks so much!

Have you tried live earthworms?

I haven't tried live earthworms for awhile. I'll try one tomorrow. Do you think he could just be sick of the things I feed him? Do you think the fact that he ate on Tuesday rules out an infection as the cause of his hunger strike? I know it makes me feel a lot better about his teeth! They work!!
Thanks

Did he at least eat enough to round his belly?

His belly never stopped being round. I really need to get some pictures of him for you. I can tell he's "slimming down" since he's stopped eating. But his belly is nice and round all the time. I think I was overfeeding him? He may have been pretty overweight before he stopped eating. I'll work on getting some pics for you. I can't find any earthworms this morning. I think they're all deep in the ground because it got cold last night...like in the low 30s. That's really cold for us here Tried feeding snails, squid, and blood worms. No luck.

Thanks. I'll work on pics.

Buy earthworms at Walmart.

Wow. Pufferpunk, you're amazing. Maybe you could suggest a specific food every day, and I'll feed it to Spot (just kidding ). He ate the earthworm!...three of them (they were small). I'm now pretty convinced that Spot has become more particular about what he'll eat and that he probably isn't sick at all. I'll keep trying to be creative and find more live food for him.

I'll let you guys know how he's doing in a couple weeks.

Thanks so much, everyone, for reading my posts and helping me with my puffer!
I really appreciate this forum. You guys are awesome!

No puffer can pass up a wriggly earthworm!

I cannot offer any evidence to support it, but I really do believe that overfeeding is the worst thing we can do for otherwise well maintained fish. My fish were never particularly long-lived until I finally learned to feed less. Overfeeding usually shows up in lowered water quality, and this is definitely not the case if your water parameters stay in the range you showed in the early post in this thread.

Even a GSP as small as 3.5" certainly does not need two daily meals and even the smallest GSP can and should have at least one fast day per week. If you think that the fish is obese, cut it to alternate day feedings, with one meal per feeding day, not two. That one meal should be visible in the fish's belly. Puffers give their keepers an advantage the other pet fish lack - they have no ribs, so a bolus of food in the gut is readily visible to the keeper. If you can never see this, you puffer is too fat. If that is the case, reduce the quantity of food per meal, and stick to the alternate day feeding schedule. When you can see that the fish has eaten by the food bolus being visible moving through the gut, your pet is just where it should be feeding-wise.

Fish have no internal appetite suppressors. When food is plentiful, they gorge. Any fat built up will sustain them in in seasons when food supplies are low. In captivity, there are few or no times of famine.

All of my fish past fry size are on alternate-day feeding schedule. Since I been on this feeding schedule, the life spans of my fish have all gone way up. When kept in stress-free tank situations ( I do primarily species + workers tanks), the alternate-day feed in reduced-stress environments allow the majority of my fish to have lifespans far in excess of what most hobbyists manage to achieve.

Now if we could just breed puffers other than the Carinotetraodons. . .

HTH