The Puffer Forum

hi guys
my puffer's behavior has changed over the last month seems to be chasing his reflection constantly, ignoring food, excluding blood when encouraged to stop chasing, not much has changed in the tank, used to eat pond snails from my fingers now is frightened of anyone near the tank. As far as i know he is the only one to survive an import of 50 into New Zealand about a year ago. i house him in a 125L planted tank with a couple corries, apistos and small school of rasboras. water is stable and clean. please help, any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
thank you.

I'll move this to the Hospital forum, so you can answer ALL the questions above, in red.

thanks pufferpunk. didn't know where i should put it.

I'm going to bed. IDK what time it is over there, but it's 2am here in Chicago. Hopefully we can get this straightened out in the morning.

How do his teeth look?

its 9pm, on your tomorrow. teeth are looking good feed him pond snails 4-5 times a week, normaly eats them greedily.
1) pH - 6.8, Ammonia - 0ppm, Nitrite - 0ppm, Nitrates 1ppm.

2) Tank size - 125L, brand is juwel rio 125
inhabitants - long fin bristlenose, 2 sterbia corries, 4 agassizi apistos, 2 macmasteri apistos, a steel blue apistpo, and 10 emerald eyes.

3) Feeding - pond snails, bloodworm, new life spectrum pellets every now and then.
water change - one 8th water change every week. plants seem to take care of the rest of the waste.
list of all products - stress coat (water conditioner), seachem iron supplement for plants.

4) What changes in last week - changed plants around because it was a bit overgrown.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? - set up for about 10 months or more did heavy cycling with blue rainbows, 10 cherry barbs, 2 bristlenose, and a few other. added fast cycle.

hes been acting abnormally for the last month, before that he was happy as.

You numbers look fine, but South American Puffers are schooling fish, he's probably bored/lonely.

SAPs are absolutely notorious for glass surfing.

Check your flow and decoration placement. If possible can you provide a full tank shot it would be appreciated.

With mine the flow was from one side of the tank to the other (length wise).

Some traits that mine displayed:
Glass surfed when I entered the room.
"Glass surfed" / panicked when I turned on the light and the room was dark.
Glass surfed when the television was on
Glass surfed basically when they "knew" something was happening in the general area...

They hid when I approached with a camera...(buggers).

What kind of filter are you using? Re-positioning it may do the trick.

saps really appreciate a complex environment to explore , as once bored of thier surroundings they will surf the glass relentlessly , they do better with 2 or more ....

Actually, that's 3-5.

thanks for the suggestions guys i will check the water flow, i have a mini powerhead i can install to up the turbulence. i wish i could get some more but the importers in NZ aren't gonna deal with them anymore, ill post a tank shot soon.

Where'd the other 49 go?

i think he'd need a bigger tank for 3-5 , actually that tanks too small for even one sap IMO ....haha get a bigger tank and a few more saps if you can find 'em !

unfortunately only 20 made it through quarantine and the other 19 died at my LSF. so far as i know he's the only one in the country and with there being less than 10 importers in NZ no one wants to risk it. sorry for the delay but heres a couple pics

Hey, thats a nice planted setup! But imo u need a longer tank for saps. They are like runaway trains.. Cant stop for a moment.. They dun stop to investigate things..like DPs does.

Thanks I'm quite proud of the set up,should get even better soon I've got gloss and hairgrass that are just starting to fill in. I have got a 850L tank but that's full of monsters, and my girlfriend has an 800L community, but if im moving him in with her I'll shut this one down.
Still can't findy power head, I'll install it as soon as I can, I e noticed be isn't surfing as much when the lights are off, or at least comes to the front.