The Puffer Forum

Hi guys! I would like to introduce my puffer fish.
I just bought a week ago, and I want to know why my palembang puffer fish is very lazy and dont want to grab the bait itself?
so I had to feed the small fish into his mouth.
Im sorry for bad quality image.

Typical behavior for palembang. Not very active and picky eater many times. You might have difficulty teaching your guy to eat different types of food.

Terrance wrote:Typical behavior for palembang. Not very active and picky eater many times. You might have difficulty teaching your guy to eat different types of food.

So far I've tried to give goldfish and shrimp, and success, but I have to pinch with the tweezers and gives it to his mouth.
you have an idea to teach it to eat itself?

Feeder goldfish carry almost every disease and parasite known to fish. They would need QT for months with care and good feeding along with treatment to be safe and adequate food for the Palembang's puffer and by then would be too large. Use DIY reared guppies or mollies, The puffer will not eat much or often, max every 3-4 days while immature, every 4-6 days when mature. I kept fish and ghost shrimp in that puffers tank routinely. Young but fair-sized female guppies were the commonest food, but mid-sized mollies were also used. The ghost shrimp were harder to catch apparently - they tended to last longest in the tank. The ghost shrimp were also QT'd and well fed for ten days minimum as a precaution and for nutrition as well.

The fish will appreciate an open shelter of bogwood or rocks as home base.

HTH

RTR wrote:Feeder goldfish carry almost every disease and parasite known to fish. They would need QT for months with care and good feeding along with treatment to be safe and adequate food for the Palembang's puffer and by then would be too large. Use DIY reared guppies or mollies, The puffer will not eat much or often, max every 3-4 days while immature, every 4-6 days when mature. I kept fish and ghost shrimp in that puffers tank routinely. Young but fair-sized female guppies were the commonest food, but mid-sized mollies were also used. The ghost shrimp were harder to catch apparently - they tended to last longest in the tank. The ghost shrimp were also QT'd and well fed for ten days minimum as a precaution and for nutrition as well.

The fish will appreciate an open shelter of bogwood or rocks as home base.

HTH

Thank you for your suggestion, I will try ASAP.

A good way to keep a supply of guppies is to breed them in a separate tank about 20 gallons and you can just add them in after you've made sure they are healthy. So it can serve as a breeder and a QT tank at the same time, just keep the gene pool fresh by adding in new guppies every once in a while. Good food to feed the ghost shrimp for nutrition is algae waffles.

Looks just like a arrowheads body just a totally different colour. Lovly fish.

Why no substrate?

puffykid wrote:A good way to keep a supply of guppies is to breed them in a separate tank about 20 gallons and you can just add them in after you've made sure they are healthy. So it can serve as a breeder and a QT tank at the same time, just keep the gene pool fresh by adding in new guppies every once in a while. Good food to feed the ghost shrimp for nutrition is algae waffles.

Good advice! Now I need to find out how to breed guppies for dummy.
I may try it later. Thank you.

suvattii2012 wrote:Looks just like a arrowheads body just a totally different colour. Lovly fish.

Thank you suvattii2012

bertie 83 wrote:Why no substrate?

Now I'm still considering what substrate I wanted to use. Any idea for the best substrate?

Palembang do not really burrow. I would suggest small pebbles ard 5mm wide. Maintenance will be very easy. Siphoning would be a breeze. That is if U are not planting anything. I would suggest the pebbles and lots of driftwood and java ferns.

All of my tanks have substrate. Certainly all of my display tanks will have substrate, as they always have and will have in the future. The fish we keep are almost all all accustomed to substrate in the wild, so I will provide similar in captivity. We keep very few pelagic fish.

I do not consider Palembang's puffer to look at all like an arrowheads - color, markings and body configuration are radically different from arrowheads. Palembang's puffers are also called broken-back puffers because of their strange configuration.

HTH

scpion wrote:Palembang do not really burrow. I would suggest small pebbles ard 5mm wide. Maintenance will be very easy. Siphoning would be a breeze. That is if U are not planting anything. I would suggest the pebbles and lots of driftwood and java ferns.

I've been thinking for that setting, I will put some driftwood and use black river sand for substrate without any plants.
Anyway, thanks for your suggestion

RTR wrote:All of my tanks have substrate. Certainly all of my display tanks will have substrate, as they always have and will have in the future. The fish we keep are almost all all accustomed to substrate in the wild, so I will provide similar in captivity. We keep very few pelagic fish.

I do not consider Palembang's puffer to look at all like an arrowheads - color, markings and body configuration are radically different from arrowheads. Palembang's puffers are also called broken-back puffers because of their strange configuration.

HTH

Yes you right, sometime my PPF make an odd position is looks like break his back.