The Puffer Forum

bought 3 of them and by the time i got home, one had puffed up and died

but here are the 2 survivors in my tank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX0z7wGXzrM

Sorry to hear about the third one dying are you going back to get another one? How big are they they are so TINY and CUTE!! Congrats on the new additions x

Congrats on getting your SAP's, although very sorry to hear that you lost one so soon. I would get another if I were you, they really do need to be in a small group and I would think 3 would be an absolute minimum. Good luck if you get any more.

yeah ill be getting another one today. i just put in a small snail and it stuck to the front glass.... both puffers see him and ignore him :S

They do look tiny but they also look healthy. Shame about the 3rd one.

went to the store today and they replaced the one that died...... i put him in and he's just sitting on the bottom.

the other 2 are obsessed with swimming up and down the glass on the backside of the tank, i think they see their own reflection,
does this mean they're bored?

360º wrote: the other 2 are obsessed with swimming up and down the glass on the backside of the tank, i think they see their own reflection,
does this mean they're bored?

Most dwarfs and South Americans do the "bored dance" up and down on the glass the first couple of days. No they don't see their reflection, because as you are looking at them through one side and can see through the glass, when theyare on the inside, they can see through the glass as well. They're just getting used to the limits of their boundaries.

well they backed away now that they saw the third guy..... my background is just a piece of matte black paper and it does create a reflection on the glass.... i can even see their reflection.

Unless you have a mirrored back/sides to the the tank, the fish cannot see their reflections. WickedEdges is correct. It is an artifact of looking through one pane of glass at another when your angle of view is not exactly perpendicular to both.

HTH

360º wrote:the other 2 are obsessed with swimming up and down the glass on the backside of the tank

Mine did that all the time. Gave them 4 months to settle in and in the end it drove me crazy enough that I unloaded them onto JP. They drove me up the wall and I felt bad for them. They're JP's problem now

i put a mirrored background.... so they do see their reflection.... they'll eventually back away

One possible solution is to up the current along the front glass. They really need exercise. These are seasonally main channel fish from the Amazon, although they usually near the sides/edges. they do seem to move into the flood plains for breeding, but they must have exercise.

my guys get a lot of exercise but dont eat much.... just tried for the third time to feed them a crushed snail and it just goes to the bottom and they dont even stop to look at it