The Puffer Forum

Hi all - I have a 4" GSP that spooks often and runs as hard as he can into the side of the tank - face first. I hate when he does this - it makes a terrible painful sound. This evening, I noticed he has a split lip - I couldnt tell if his tooth is chipped - I hope not. I think I need a padded tank for this guy. I havent treated his lip yet - Im not too sure how other than adding some Melafix. He eats fine and still bullies the other GSP. Maybe i should get a background with a printed brick wall - then he would know.
Does anyone else have a GSP that does this?

My ceylons can spook pretty easily (mostly from the tank's lights). You're best off to cover three sides of the tank with background. If you don't want to do that, try covering half of the sides and see if that helps. My girlfriend's mom has jack dempseys, and they would spook easily, so she put some bristle board on half of one side, and now they don't spook at all. It's likely just a perceived safety thing (similar to you trying to sleep when your bedroom walls are made of glass... it'd be a bit unnerving). ^_^

I kinda wish they made a light-dimmer for fish tanks, so that, instead of just coming on instantly, they gradually became brighter. Someone should develop that.

Thanks Agnate - I guess I could but something up along the sides - or maybe plant the tank super heavily around the sides. I didnt think of that. And 'they' do make a dimmer for aquariums - Ive seen them in aquarium catalogues... there was one that looked like a complex power strip where each plug had an assigned function - sunrise/sunset, moon rise, wave simulation for the power heads... it was pretty cool but I cant remember where I saw it. You could probably google it and find something similar.
Thanks for the help

Haha, my bad! I meant to say "a light-dimmer that doesn't break the bank!" ^_^

I'll have to look into the dimmers, though.

my fahaka is always doing this and busting his lip he mainly does it when i fetch food , he swims so fast to get to dinner he forgets the glass is there !
whenever hes done this in the past i just leave his lip to get better on its own which has always been fine.

Traditional dimmers wont' work on ballasted lighting, unfortunately. Most of the complex controllers are simply timers with separate times for each outletg, so you can use a complex series of lights to simulate a day/night cycle, not something that can help with a simple single or double tube lights with a single plug. Adding an incandescent strip light, with incandescent bulbs, and using a traditional dimmer on that might work, though, and after the main light is finally turned on, you could just turn that one off to save energy and waste heat.