The Puffer Forum

And here I thought today was going to be a good day because my Fang's puffer made me laugh by puffing himself up so big this morning. But I went to do my regular daily vacuuming of all my tanks, and when I got to my suvattii/Palembang tank it was cloudy, and I thought it was because of the shrimp that I had fed them yesterday evening -- sometimes they don't eat it and it starts to mess the tank up. At first I didn't notice anything because my suvattii like to hang out in this PVC tubes that I have in there. But then I noticed something white behind the coconut shell and when I poked it with my vacuum, I realised what it was. It was one of my young suvattii puffers. I originally had 3, and after a mating courtship one died, and I think it incurred internal damage from the bites that the other gave it during their courtship. So that left 2 small (about 3-1/2 inches) suvattii that weren't very old.

Now I've just got the other small suvattii, and the Palembang in that tank. I have flash.dan's Bam-Bam, but he's in another tank altogether, and he's doing fine. I've never seen any of them fighting, and I looked at the deceased suvattii's body and could not see any signs of bodily harm, or nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, his belly was still fat from having eaten the previous evening, which leaves me to believe that he probably died not long after I fed them last night. I usually do the feeding routine anywhere from 5pm-6pm, so the suvattii probably died sometime after 6pm because I fed them before that time. The poor little guy looked so cute, just like he was alive, only he wasn't. His eyes were bright and open, his little mouth turned up just as if he was sitting there like normal. It was all very sad and I have cried, and am still crying while writing this.

I have to be honest, I wasn't all that keen on those little suvattii when we first got them, I thought they were a bit ugly, but they definitely grew on me because now I am very fond of them, and feel very sad for losing such a young one. I keep watching the other suvattii to make sure that's he's okay, same with the Palembang. I went and did a 50% water change to get rid of that cloudy water and the stink of death as well. So hopefully the other puffers won't be affected by what's happened, but it still makes me wonder what went wrong. My water is fine, no problems with nitrites or ammonia, and no obvious problems anywhere. I guess it's just one of those things, just very unfortunate.

oh really sorry 2 hear about your loss schismy always sad init, especially when u dont know the reason! rip little puffer x

Thank you rachy.

Yes, it is very sad because he was such a young puffer and should have lived many many more years. I'm still teary-eyed about it, although I should take solace that I've still got other puffers to love, however it's never easy losing even one.

It's always hard to lose any pet. I'm sorry for your loss .

Sorry for your loss *hugs*

Thank you both Stormy Skiez and qtrhorse89

I'm sorry schismy007. What you need to know and believe is that there are very few, if ANY others, that could have given your puffer the happy life that you did.

That's so sad. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry to hear about your Suvatti

omplmpa3 wrote:I'm sorry schismy007. What you need to know and believe is that there are very few, if ANY others, that could have given your puffer the happy life that you did.

Awwww, thank you omplmpa3, that was very sweet of you to say that. Made me feel all funny inside!
Thanks to LGP and redspotowner as well, I appreciate everyone's kind words.

oh, I completely second, third and fourth Omplmpa3's comment by the way!!!

Now you're making me blush, thank you!

**Just a note** My tank seems so empty without that little guy. They might not be the most active puffers there are, but I had grown close to my little suvattii's and am already missing him.

heartbreaking.

Have you thought about moving your remaining Suvattii and Palembang into a different tank or rearranging the layout of their current one? It's been almost a month since I lost half the population of my 55gallon freshwater community tank. The worst one to loose was Snowflake, my Angelfish. It hurt to loose my cory cats, But I was devastated over Snowflake. I had only had him for a year, but in that time he grew from around the size of a nickel to his body being close to the size of my palm. I thought he was just beautiful. I wanted to just get rid of the tank, I couldn't stand to look at it. But I could not afford to buy a new tank anytime soon and I had a little SAP in quarantine. So I move the 55s remaining fish to a smaller tank, the community was not that big anymore, and completely rescaped it . New sand, plants, driftwood and fish. I'm not sure if it was a healthy way to deal with my grief, and while I still ache over losing Snowflake, I'm consoled when I watch the tanks new inhabitants.

The problem with that suggestion is that I have nowhere to house the suvattii and Palembang whilst I rearrange the tank they are in.
As you may (or may not) know, those aren't the sort of puffers I can put in with any other fish.

Strangely enough, since the one suvattii died, the other small suvattii is moving around in the tank more, and I don't think the Palembang is very happy about that, because young suvattii keeps hanging out in Palembang's favourite spot (under the filter)!