The Puffer Forum

Hi all,

I recently brought home one dwarf puffer from the LFS. He appears healthy by all standards I can find, a seemingly round belly, good color, etc. However, I've had him home since Sunday evening and it's now Wednesday evening and I can't get him to eat. I have offered a couple of blood worms every day and he ignores them. He may be eating snails as the tank is stocked with them but I have yet to see him eat one. As a matter of fact, he seems to 'hunt' them but I've never seen him actually nip at them let alone eat them. The first couple of days, he was fairly active and seems to enjoy 'riding' the force from the filter (I'm assuming he likes it because he keeps doing it, lol - it's like a water slide). However, today, every time I've checked on him he's just laying on the floor of the tank in the same spot. His tail is not curled, he's just laying there. He does move when I disturb the tank but he goes back to the same spot and lays down. When I was watching him a nice big snail approached him and literally moved right past him with it's antennas? even touching the little DP and he just ignored it and moved away a little.

So my question, after all that rambling, is how long should I continue on without worrying that he's not eating? What's the longest? I'm afraid he'll starve to death? I would try black worms but the local stores don't carry them and LFS won't even order them because it costs them too much to turn a profit. Any ideas? I'm about ready to take him back the LFS cause I"m afraid I'm starving him to death. I don't know what to do.

Tiffany

what are your water parameters?

Temperature - 77 degrees
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - Low

Don't have a pH test.

He may be stressed out from the move. I'd try soaking his food in garlic first.

I will try that, I'll have to run to the store to get some. Does the smell entice them or something? ARGH now I can't even find him. He's not in any of the plants, he's not out of the tank, can't get up the filter...unless the snails ate him (?) or he buried himself in gravel, I don't know where he went!!? I'm seriously getting so discouraged with keeping fish.

Don't get discouraged! The fact that you're posting here, means you care.

If you put him in an established tank, and he has plenty to hunt down, that's probably what he's doing. Mine never accepted ANY food from me other than live blackworms, they much preferred to hunt down little "bugs" and shrimp and snails on their own. I never saw them catch anything, but they were always fat and sassy.

Can you post a picture so we can give you an idea if he's healthy looking, fat/skinny, etc?

This was my male.. not overly chubby (the female was) but at a pretty healthy weight, and 99% of it was his own hunting.



Here's the chubby female:


Oh, and check your substrate for snail shells.. you might find pieces or entire shells, dwarf puffers are small enough to pull a snail right out of its shell. As you can see in the picture of my female, there were several empty or broken shells in the gravel.