The Puffer Forum

Hey everyone.. as most of you I have a mbu puffer fish named Kaleeko. He has been acting pretty strange recently.. he hasn't eaten for 3 days. We put a cray in the tank.. and needless to say the cray is still alive. We have not changed anything recently.. other then the light schedule.

Test results from last night
pH: 6.4
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates: 50>20
Nitrites: 0
KH: 4 drops to yellow (soft)
GH: < 20mg

The only thing that I can possibly think of is the KH, GH and maybe pH but they are all stable and Kaleeko has been in these water parameters for almost a year and hasn't had any problems until now.. is he possibly becoming more senstive, or possibly sick??

Tank size, puff's size, water change schedule? Feeding?

Are his colors good? If they are, I wouldn't worry about it yet.

I have a turgidus that I'm pretty sure is female.. every few month's it will stop eating completely, for about 3 weeks, but never appear to lose weight (I'm thinking eggy?). Then suddenly it will be back at the glass demanding food every day.

The nitrates are still a little high, so more water changes won't hurt. Some puffers get crabby if they get over 20 I've found, while others don't really care.

Sorry sorry forgot some info.. just so frustrated!

Tank size 120g 4x2x2, puffer size 10 inches (without tail), tank mates 4 tiger datnoids
Water schedule, 50% every week, sometimes will do an extra water change if needed.

Feeding is done once a day prawn/crab/mysis recently.. all extra food is removed from the tank


Amy, his colours are good at times, he has done this before, but never for this long.. I always thought it might be because he was just growing, this morning his colours were great. Last night his colours where blotchy and he was resting in his normal corner as he usually does .. This morning he was swimming around, still looks nice and chubby.. just don't want to miss anything. He is due for a water change tonight!

What is the pH of your tap water? I'm thinking larger WC are in order.

Very, very very low 6.0 if not lower! Our tap water is good for ammonia though 0

We will certainly be doing a large water change tonight.
I was also wondering what a stable solution would be for harder water, I feel it might be a little too soft.. or am I worrying about something that has no relevance..?

You probably don't have to worry about it too much, but I wonder if it wouldn't hurt to do something to stablilize it a bit more. I've always had liquid rock water so I'm not experienced at all with working with soft water.. but I *think* there are a few simple and natural (non-chemical) ways to make it a bit more stable. I want to say baking soda is one of those ways, another might be changing your substrate to something that buffers like argonite, or adding a media bag of crushed coral to your filter.. but you'll have to find out for sure from someone that knows more about soft water than I do!

Check your tank temperature too.. while warm water speeds up metabolism (and then they eat more), if it gets too warm they can get crabby too.. so if your weather is hot your tank might have warmed up more than you realize.

No relevance, unless you're a coral.

Temp is at a stable 80.. has been for a few months now, I wish I could say it's been super hot here.. darn rain!!

Awe Lisa, I hope he's just being moody or something simple and that everything will be just fine with him! I'm sure he'll jump back in a day or so. I'll be thinking about you guys and sending some positive vibes!

Hope all is well!

Thanks Savvy, I sure hope it's just one of his *moods* he gets like this every now and then, but never for this long!!
& After he gets out of his mood he's usually grown a bit... hopefully that is just what is happening.. good thing we're getting his new tank ASAP!

I personally would not worry, because 3 days is nothing to a puffer that size. And if he's not looking skinny or malnourished, then I don't think you've got anything to worry about at this time.

Just out of curiosity, have you tried offering some different foods, I mean, different from what you normally feed him? Maybe he's a bit bored with what he's being offered -- now I don't know that's the case, just throwing out some ideas. I know my Palembang loved earthworms and couldn't seem to get enough and then one day just decided he wasn't going to eat them anymore.

Whatever the case may be, I hope Kaleeko is back to his normal self before too long.

I was thinking he may just not want what was being offered, so I tried putting some garlic on it, and no luck with that either .. We're going to try out this stuff called "seafood melody" I seen it at our local TNT and it's a mix of frozen raw seafood, so hopefully he's bored or something!!!

He he, I actually just bought the same bag the other day of the Seafood Melody. So far Teka does not like the octopus

Maybe that's all Kaleeko needs is new food choices Wishing you luck!

I sure hope it is something that simple!