The Puffer Forum

My puffer had been seeming tired these last days, probably because of the heat. But he was eating and all. This morning it had been two days we didn't see it, so we tried to attract it with food, it only brought small crabs and stuff (he never attacked them).
So my husband took apart the rocks and all, and NO ONE there. He looked on the floor everywhere, it didn't jump out either. Any idea??

I had the same thing happen to a female crowntail betta i put in a community tank. we had not seen it for a couple days so we looked around the tank and still didn't find it. upon doing a water change we still didn't find anything. i'm pretty sure the crabs got to it at some point... maybe the crabs attacked the puffer while it was sleeping?? thats the only thing that makes sense to me.

We had it for a month, and we always fed generously (because we were afraid he would eat the crabs, we couldn't take them out as the tank is very deep)... I keep thinking maybe he died, and then was eaten, but could they eat so quickly that we do not find ANYTHING? It was a big fish, like 25 cms, and it had huge teeth...

I had that happen twice with my DPs except they went from being there and eating well to complete nonexistence in less than 12 hours. None of the others had bigger bellies or anything. They just disappeared. Never did find any trace of the two that disappeared. My best guess was that a cat removed the tank lid, ate a fish, then put the lid back on...

Crabs are nocturnal and that's when puffers sleep, so it's definitely possible that the crab did indeed eat your puffer. I used to have a Matano crab in my tank with my dwarf puffers and I seen my numbers declining on the DP's, and I'm sure the crab was taking the dwarf puffers at night when they were sleeping.

On the other hand, make sure you look in and under any ornaments. I had to move some puffers from one tank to another and I took everything out of that tank, and I didn't see any other fish, puffers or not in that tank. Then a couple weeks later, I found a PAIR of irrubesco puffers that had somehow hidden themselves. I still am not sure where they hid, but I took everything out of that tank and never seen them. Puffers can be crafty sometimes.

someone on here recently thought they had lost a blue crayfish, pulled everything out of the tank. Went and bought another one and then low and behold the original one just showed up

That was me!

rachel wrote:We had it for a month, and we always fed generously (because we were afraid he would eat the crabs, we couldn't take them out as the tank is very deep)... I keep thinking maybe he died, and then was eaten, but could they eat so quickly that we do not find ANYTHING? It was a big fish, like 25 cms, and it had huge teeth...

A 25cm puffer just disappearing & not even leaving any remains? Sounds a little strange to me!

pufferpuggirl wrote:That was me!

Haha I read to many things on here to remember

And to the OP, I took your puffer

Yeah I have to say that I wasn't considering the size of the puffer when I made my comment about crabs possibly eating it. I agree, that's a very large puffer to just disappear. What sort of top do you have on that tank?

Fish...tank...time...machine...

LOL

Sounds just like what happened with my blue crayfish!

Looong time ago I couldn't find a Dwarf puff. Found a skeleton in the gravel after a good cleanout

Own cats? Cats can make larger fish disappear without a trace.