The Puffer Forum

My c. lorteti are decidedly lurkers...I usually see them with rounded bellies, but I never see them eat...I'll put food in the tank (thus far I've tried snails, krill, bloodworms, brine shrimp, mussels, and daphnia), and neither one makes a move. Even if I watch for awhile after the food is in the tank, and regardless of what time of day it is.

Honestly, I never see them much at all. They're still quite small, and the dank is decently well planted, so sometimes I can't find them, period. And by sometimes, I mean often.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to encourage them to come out more? Or at least, how to get them to come out and eat? I get worried that they're not eating because in my brief experience with another type of puffer, he'd more or less beg for food, and so the fact that these guys don't concerns me.

Any ideas on feeding lurkers? Anyone have any helpful experience?

How long have you been keeping those guys?

I have seen lurkers(arrowhead puffer) begging for food near the water surface but that was after only two months after bagging it home from LFS. I guess you just have to give them a little bit more time to settle down into the tank environment.

Or perhaps your puffers are too stressed up by each other? Maybe you can do up on the tank deco and allocate hiding places at various areas of the tank.

Are there any other tank mates with those c.lorteti?

My two lurkers (Baileyi and miurus) both are mostly invisible during the day.
Owia the miurus, has periods in witch see is active. So some few weeks she will swim quit often during the days for some minutes, some weeks she won't even come the surface to eat her worm.
Pjotter is even "worse" I know the places he likes to hide, so most of the times I'll able te find him, but even with his 10cm he can easily disappear. I rarely see him swim, but now he knows how to beg a little big. When I'm sitting behind the computer sometimes he will come a little bit out of his hole and rest his head just on a stone in front of his hole, begging for some food.

That’s just what lurkers do, you shouldn't expect an very active puffer.

I don't know how big yours are now at the moment. But I feed the lurkers with a tweezers, if they don't want to come, they won't get any food.
It's a good opportunity to check if they are still all right and look good.
Food you can try to feed with the tweezers and my puffers really like are: earthworms, mussels, crayfish, (grocery)shrimps. But I thing this food is a bit to big (mine lurkers are both around the 10cm. But you could try to feed bloodworms with the tweezers.

If I remember right, you just got them? They need time to settle in into their new environment. Of course it could be your spesimens being shy, but in general, lortetis are active, interested fishes. But most puffers want time after moving into a new place, until they feel safe enough. Puffers don't handle changes very good.
Lortetis aren't real lurkers, only semilurkers. Real lurkers, like monotrete suvatti, stay hidden while they wait for their food to walk/swim/pass by. Then they dig in.
Semilurkers, or stealth hunters, are active hunters, but likes to stay hidden while they hunt. They don't hunt in the open. They don't wait for their food to pass by, like the real lurkers, they search for them in an active way. But stays hidden anyway. I hope this made sense.

They are not lurkers--they are hunter/seekers. Lurkers hang out in caves/plants & ambush predatrors hang out under the sand.

Okay...it's true, I've only had them for a week and a half, so it could be that they're still settling in. When I do see them, I check for signs of stress/illness, and thus far they seem okay (alert/non-curled tails/white bellies). I'll give them more time, and just keep putting in a little food every day, and hope that eventually they'll feel comfortable enough to swim around without spending most of their time hiding.

If you read this article in the Puffer library, you will find information on how different puffers hunt. Every puffer owner should read this, in my opinion. Much to learn there.