The Puffer Forum

Today I sat down in front of my computer (my "desk", an antique table I refinished broke in half the other day so my computer is now on the floor) and noticed my male dwarf didn't look so good.

His colors were nearly black and he was very bloated looking. My first reaction was "uh oh, water change time" then I realized he was facing off with the male krib in the tank! As soon as he saw me watching he changed his colors back, slimmed down and swam over to me like normal. I'm thinking the kribs spawned and he's after the young, normally he doesn't venture into their rockwork and bother them.. Anyways, it didn't look like a typical puffer "puff", but I was wondering if that is the extent of their puffing? It wasn't a big belly puff, more a full body enlargement, with the colors really dark, nearly black over his entire body with just a little yellow near the tail.

I don't know if I can get a picture, he keeps going down there and doing it, being very obnoxious, but when he sees me goes back to normal.

Well, this might be my answer as to how long this mixed arrangement will work (pair of kribs, pair of dwarfs and a SAP in a 29 with plants and rockwork).

that sounds bout right for a puffing, but without an actual pic its hard to wanna say for sure. im 95% though.

pretty normal threat display. a pair of kribs and a pair of dps, im not surprised they spawned and things are testy though. maybe remove the spawners and let them be territorial elsewhere.

DP's should really be alone or with low profile fish(otos). I bet the kribs are very aggressive now since they have babies, that could cause stress to the puffers and maybe be a reason for the puffing... I've also seen DP's fin nip much larger fish. If you can set up a tank for the DP's or the kribs it would be much better on both of them.

good luck with your babies

Well, I do think I'm going to so some shuffling around either way.

The puffer was actually nipping and harassing the krib, not the other way around. The kribs ignore them otherwise, even letting the dwarves steal food out of their mouths. This set up has been working for over 2 years now, for some reason today he just got really obnoxious.

Recently the male dwarf has been a bit more agressive though, even towards the female dwarf. I'm thinking I might give the pair to a friend of mine who has 5 dwarves, and while they are still a little young to be sure it looks like she ended up with one male and 4 females. So if I give her my pair, that should be a good balance for her, 2 males, 5 females. I'd just want to wait a little bit for hers to be older and make sure we are all ready for a royal rumble if my little brat tries any funny stuff.

I've been looking for an excuse to tear this tank down and distribute the members into other tanks anyways, this might be the time. I just have to figure out where the kribs will fit in best, I could put them in a 10 gallon of their own, but I don't know if that would be large enough.. hmmm...

If a DP puffs it will be very obvious. I have seen three DP's do this so far and the best way to to describe it is as if they have swallowed a marble!

Rocker wrote:If a DP puffs it will be very obvious. I have seen three DP's do this so far and the best way to to describe it is as if they have swallowed a marble!

Yep. I've seen them like that. Perfectly round, with eyes on one end and a tail on the other!

I've never noticed my Dwarf puffers puffing up like that but I have on SEVERAL occasions noticed the males flattening their bodies in a verticle manner. I thought that was the only way they were able to "puff"...

That is male display - same as a peacock spreading his tail feathers - rather than puffing.

Ah okay, that's a perfect way to describe it. He seemed much flatter and taller, top to bottom, but not really puffed. Thanks!

I've had my Dwarf Puffer for about a week and a half already.

I barely got to see him half puff today.

I was feeding him his daily bloodworms when one of the ghost shrimps snatched it from him and I guess he was pretty pissed off about this and start puffing. I wish he would've puffed full blown because that would've been such a interesting site to see.

I have him half puffed on video. He looks funny. If anyone wants to watch it let me know and I'll upload it. =)

my husbands dp puffed the other day when i was watching them, i know your gonna laugh now but my only reaction was to put my fingers in my ears and closed my eyes coz i thought it was gonna explode as soon as it deflated i remembered it was a pufferand sposed to do that! how daft am i! lol
Lis

(This is the part where I point out that this thread is over two years old )

ehh so what

This thread is really old, but since people brought it back, there's a thread over on DwarfPuffers.com with pictures of a puffed DP
http://dwarfpuffers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7759