The Puffer Forum

Hello everyone,

Im Louise, I have 3 Leopard Puffer fish and love them to bits they are fantastic. I have only had them a week so lots and lots of learning to do.
Im having trouble with their feeding at the moment and getting so much different info from where i bought them now I have no idea whats wrong and whats right......hence finding you guys I need help lol.

When I bought them I was told to feed them live mussels and it would be fine to buy from the supermarket... which i did I washed them and dropped 3 into the tank almost instantly the water turned w murky milky colour which shocked me but the puffers demolished two of them, i took the other one plus the empty shells out and paniced as the water colour and the hiddious smell of fish from the tank. and my poor babies look massive their bellies were double the size and lumpy, they lost colour and just sat at the bottom of the tank, it took 3 days for the water to clear and on the 3rd day the puffers were back to normal. (safe to say I will NEVER be doing that again)
So back to the shop to have my water tested and get some more advice on feeding them they found ammonia in the water and a water change had to be done. As for feeding I was told the advice given was wrong and should not have bought from the super market. They showed me there frozen food for puffers and I bought whold cockals and cockals in shells.
I fed the puffers yesterday just a small amount of cockal prob the size of a 50p between all 3, i had to pop out so couldn't watch them feed. when i got back I had a big shock to find one of my puffers even bigger than when he ate the mussels, his tummy has gone down a bit today but his still a bit big.
What do I do, how often do i feed them, whats the best things to feed them and how much, I love these little guys and really want to learn how to look after them properly just seems the info im getteing from the shop is not real god.

Kind regards
Louise

Hi and welcome.

First things first, if you have ammonia in your tank then its not cycled, so you're gonna be doing a lot of water changes the next couple of weeks until the water parameters are under control. Get yourself a test kit and keep a daily eye on ammonia and nitrite readings especially, these need to be 0 as puffers are very sensitive to these and it will do them harm. So a daily big water change is going to be in order.

Next ID. Have a look through the pufferpedia. I have a feeling they will be green spotted puffers under the brackish section. If they are there is an article in the library section on their care, have a good read of that. If they're not that and you cant see what they are try and get a pic and post it up and well be able to ID it for you.

Next feeding, theres another article in the library on that but start off small until you work out what will give them a decent meal but not overfeeding them.

library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
library/water-filtration/emergencycycle/
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/

Welcome to the forum!

Puffers will gorge themselves, so you have to be careful how much food you put in.

Hi
Thank you for your replies, I have read an re-read lol.

Just one question Hilly you said my tank is not cycled what does this mean? does this only happen to new tanks? My tank is over 5yrs old now. I have fitted an external filter before the puffer fish were introduced (thats all that has changed in 5yrs) and the shop said it was prob the live mussels that caused the ammonia.
Thank you for telling me to do daily water changes other wise I would have only done what the ssop told me to do which was one water change of 20 to 30%

Looked on pufferpidea and mine are green spotted puffers thank you
Sorry if I sound a bit silly but I really want to understand and do the best for my little guys.

Thanks again
Louise

Please read the links I gave you.

I suppose it could have been the Mussels deterorating that could have caused the ammonia spike, were the uneaten pieces in there for a while. What sort of fish were in there before the puffers? Another possibility is that the introduction of the puffers has tipped the bioload into the tank and so there isnt enough bacteria to convert ammonia and nitrites to nitrates which should sort itself out as more beneficial bacteria forms. Either way if you continue to get ammonia and nitrite readings water changes will sort it out.

Don't feel silly ... it's better to ask questions than to assume you know the right answer and do something that could jeopardise the health of your puffers.

There is such a thing as "old tank syndrome" .... maybe that's an issue here? I don't know.

Thank you all so much, I have just done another water change and will take a sample to the shop tomorrow. I will keep going until all is ok,

Pufferpunk thanks for the links I read the 1st and 3rd missed the 2nd lol just read it and wow great info, tells me all i needed to know. thanks again.

Before the puffers it was just a tropical tank, but after the purchase of a cat fish it ate all my other fish so we decided to start again with just the same and walked into the shop to see my three needing new a home and they would only sell them all together ,i just had to have them, now we have the 3 puffers and Cichlids together as this is what they have been bought up with they totally ignore the Cichlids the only issue i had was the smallest puffer nipping at my plecio but she has stopped that now and just looks forward to her food.

Louise

What size is your tank? Also you won't be able to keep the cichlids with them, GSPs are brackish fish- they need marine salt.

Adding 3 puffers to any tank is going to be quite an extra bioload to the system & will cause an ammonia spike.