The Puffer Forum

OMG, she puffed! My palembangensis puffed! I've never seen a puffed puffer before myself, only in pics. None of my puffers has ever done it before, at least not when I've been watching.

I came into my bedroom to feed the two puffers I've got there. And when I looked into Dragonfly's tank, I saw this huge ball floating around (it was a total puff, all the way up). My heart almost stopped with the shock, as I believed it was something wrong with her, just floating around as she did. But when she saw me, she deflated again quickly, and acted like normal. She got her food, but I'm still in shock, and still scared half to death. I'd never thought it would be so scary to see a puffed puffer! But what an experience! It was really impressive. She was so huge! I didn't see her spines though, but both the room and the tank was in the dark. I guess she didn't think I would see her doing it.

I guess I will be more happy about it when my heart has calmed down a bit (it still beats in a not very usual pace), but WOW!

Congratulations!!! The first time is a very scary experience, if ever you see it again you'll think it's awesome instead of scary. At least thats how I am

I was told that they only "puffed" when they're stressed, and that it could be fatal.
Which is why I never encouraged Buffy to do it.

You should never encourage or try to make a puffer puff, but when they do (and are in a good environment) chances are they are just practicing or something and show no signs of stress from it.

You're quite right you shouldn't encourage a puffer to puff. It is stressful for them. But by some strange reason, some puffers do it without any reason from time to time, maybe for the sake of training? Who knows? The funny part is that people often experience that the puffers do this when they think we don't see them. So did my little Dragonfly (I just can't stop imagining her doing the same when she's fully grown). She deflated the moment she saw me (and, wow, they deflate quickly!). I've had puffers for 1 1/2 years, and haven't seen it before. But experiencing this for the first time the same evening as you've been having anxiety attacks, is not the right time. It took a while for my system to calm down. Now I finally can sit down and enjoy that I finally got to see it! I wish I could have taken pics of it, but I wouldn't have had time to even turn on my camera. Wow, she was beautiful! Strange little thing, but beautiful.

This web page contains some very sad pics of palembangs puffed on air. But it gives some idea about what I saw tonight.

WoW, I think my heart would almost stop too if my puffer puffed. Very cool she deflated as soon as she saw you! To bad no pics!

Puffers have also been known to puff when they are excited.

I've never had a puffer puff out of excitement (at least that I could tell)
They would partially puff but thats it.

I''ve had them do it if I didn't walk up to the tank and say hi to them, or if I had fish food in my hand and didn't give them any.