The Puffer Forum

I thought I'd ask this question because I was in the kitchen this morning and looked into the other room only to see my turgidus puffer all puffed-up! I've never seen him/her puff before, and really, other than my suvattii which used to puff quite often, I've not seen any of my other puffers puffing up.

The reason the turgidus was puffing I found out, was because beside his/her tank is my Baileyi's tank, and the Baielyi was just sitting very casually on it's terracotta pot watching turgidus huffing and puffing up. I think turgidus thought he might scare Baileyi if it puffed up because my Baileyi is alot bigger than the turgidus. As interesting as it was to see the turgidus puffing like it was (quite a strange sight), I finally put a towel between the two tanks, so that they could not see each other.

Baileyi clearly wasn't worried, I think he/she knew that there was no issue, due to Baileyi's size compared to turgidus! Once the towel was in place, turgidus went back to swimming around and being King of his castle. He sometimes head butts the divider that keeps him and my Congo apart. (I think it would be a very horrible thing if they got together, so I frequently check how secure the divider is to make sure they don't get a chance to get together).

But now I'm curious .... how many of you have seen your puffers puffing-up? And under what circumstances?

When I had my figure eight..... he was younger then....... but I was syphoning my tank........ and I wasn't paying attention......... and I turned to look. The water stopped flowing. I was in shock to see my little fig 8 was stuck in the pipe all puffed up. So I cut the pipe open close to his head and close to his tail...... and I pushed him out.... put him back in the tank and he deflated and was all good....... HE SURVIVED!!!!

OH and my dwarfs were fighting and one puffed.

Brandon Rasberry wrote:When I had my figure eight..... he was younger then....... but I was syphoning my tank........ and I wasn't paying attention......... and I turned to look. The water stopped flowing. I was in shock to see my little fig 8 was stuck in the pipe all puffed up. So I cut the pipe open close to his head and close to his tail...... and I pushed him out.... put him back in the tank and he deflated and was all good....... HE SURVIVED!!!!

Sorry, but that made me laugh!! I can't imagine seeing such a sight. Glad he survived though (I would not have laughed if he didn't survive).

LOL!

My DP puffed up yesterday, the first time I've seen it. I had just turned the lights on, and he drifted out of his cave, looked all bloated. I freaked out for a moment, thinking he was dreadfully ill, but then he deflated, and I realized what had just happened. I was pretty excited.

I would be excited too because I've never seen any of my DP's puffed up.

Our Abei puffs up at his reflection quite a bit... silly little thing. He doesn't fully puff up, just partially.

I used to get really stressed but it doesn't seem to bother George so I just leave him to it. After half puffing a few times he settles down and ignores his reflection.

Luckily he's too big to fit in the siphon LOL

Never have seen my gsp's puff ever in almost 2 years of caring for them. That is probably a good thing. I'd worry to death if they puffed!

Yeah my suvattii used to puff up at their reflection, but they don't do it anymore since I moved them to a bigger tank.

Ive never seen my spotted green puffer puffed up, but when i was putting her into the new tank, she made a sqeaky sound which i just found out that was the sound they make when trying to inflate.

Well see, we learn new things every day because I did not know that puffers made specific noises. That's very interesting!

When my fig 8 went up my siphon tube, he made a squeaky noise too!

I've never seen my F8 puff, nor have I seen most of the puffers at my work (the LFS) ever do it...

The one exception was a hairy puffer who puffed during a tank transfer. He was not a happy camper. Suffered no ill effects, though!

Brandon Rasberry wrote:When my fig 8 went up my siphon tube, he made a squeaky noise too!

I would not like to see any of my puffers in turmoil, but I'd be interested to hear this "squeaky" noise!