The Puffer Forum

Okay, I recently bought my GSP at walmart after doing (probably not enough) research. When I bought him, all the puffers in the walmart tank we're a bright color. He was the smallest one. I went back four days later, and all the puffers were black, and another fish tank had about twenty dead fish o_0

So, I kept a close eye on my puffer.
He seems to be doing well.. With the exception of One thing. In the mornings when I get up and turn the fish tank on, he is always a darker color, and sitting on the bottom. This morning, he was laying up against the filter sucker thing, and I thought he was dead. I poked him off of the filter, and he landed on a fake plant I have, and just sat there for about five minutes. I went to get some frozen bloodworms, and when I came back he was up and swimming around, bright green again, and ate a full tummies worth.

He's in freshwater, because I read somewhere that was fine, and the walmart guy suggested they were freshwater fish, but now I see I need to slowly put him in bw. I got my paycheck today, and plan to invest in a 50gal tank for him. Right now he is in a tank with four tetras, a drawf frog, algea eater, and a dojo. He leaves everyone alone, but I also buy him ten little ghost brine shrimps to chase around all week.

So, is the freshwater making him sick? It only seems to be at night and early mornings. Is it the light goes off or something? I feed him once a day. He's probably about an inch big right now.

Many GSPs get a dark belly when they are sleeping. And puffers do sleep. It sounds like that is what your puffer is doing.
But you really should give him brackish water. GSPs get a longer life and better health in BW, and should go into full marine when they reach adulthood.

But is it not weird he was laying against the filter sucker? I mean like, a dead fish would. Up right against it. I have never seen a fish do that before, unless it was dead. Gave me quite the scare.

If he is sleeping, at least now I will know to expect it. Haha.

Yes, I will deff. Be moving him if not this week, next for sure to a larger tank by himself so I can do a bw mix. Thank you!

haha my GSP used to scare the hell out of me until i found out that they have sleeping/hunting colors in which they darken themselves. he has done that and i have poked him off. it takes a few minutes for them to come to after waking up. sometimes if i turn on the lights before my GSP gets fully woken up he seems all irritable and has tried to bite me, but after a minute he is absolutely fine and acting like himself again. its insane how fast they can turn from bright to dark or vise versa

Oh gosh, this makes so much sense now! Haha
Thank god it was something so simple.
I do notice that after he eats a full meal of bloodworms/shrimp he turns darker. I guess that's the hunting colors? Very neat.

would love to see a pic of the little fella

Hmm, okay! I will try to upload a picture, give me a good minute

Thats the best I can do right away. I will try to take a better one tomorrow morning at feeding time. Seems Elvis is camera shy, really. I held my phone a little ways away, and zoomed in, but he kept hiding behind the big rock I have. By the time I finally got this picture, he was turning a little grey, I guess out of frustration. Ha, but now of course he is sitting at the front of the tank watching me, back to a bright color. Figures. My Congo African Grey parrot is the same way, completely camera shy.

From that picture, does he look to skinny or just right? Thats feeding him once a day. He did have a bowl movement about five minutes after the picture.

He looks good to me..nice fins

His lips are poking out a bit, which is normal..but it makes me want to ask you if you are feeding hard shelled foods to wear down his teeth?

Little ghost/brine shrimp, whatever they are, bloodworms, and sundried shimp are all he has gotten since I got him about a week ago. Tomorrow though, I am going to go get saw crawfish, and snails

you can also give him raw shrimp with the shell still on, just cut it up some. And clams on the halfshell, they scrape thier tooth to get the clam off the shell

You can feed frozen food, just not freeze dried. And im curious about sundried

Well, I was feeding him sundried baby shrimp before I got him live food, and frozen blood worms. He loved them, but won't go near them now that he's getting the good stuff. Ha

yes puffers get spoiled very easily. Ive gotten lucky and mine pretty much will eat anything I put in. But I know a few people on here can only feed live food.