The Puffer Forum

Hi all! I am new to puffers and absolutely adore them! I have one amazon puffer (and another on the way). Anyway, my current always seems hungry (sounds like most puffers are) and has been eating frozen bloodworms well until the other day. (I've only had him about 2 weeks). He hasn't eaten any of the snails I put in, and now they are to big (geez they grow fast!) Anyway, what I've been observing is he will "attack" the bloodworm, hold it is his mouth for a couple seconds and then spit it out...this has been going on for a couple of days. I tried to look at his teeth and they don't look overgrown to me (how exactly do you tell)? In fact they look pretty trim. Anyway, he got ich shortly after arriving, not sure if it has anything to do with stress, but he seems very interested in the food, just acts like its not what he was expecting or doesn't taste good or something... Any ideas? I'm very fond of this guy in the short time I've had him Thanks in advance.

library/puffers-in-focus/sap/
library/hospital/dentistry/

Have you treated for the ick? Is your tank cycled?

Welcome to the forum

Thank you for the link puffer punk. Purple candle... His current tank is not completely cycled. (Long story but he arrived before I thought he would.). When the other arrives they will be moved to a cycled tank. I treated the ich with salt/heat and it appears mostly gone at this point.

Unless 99% of their food are snails, read up on dentistry--you'll be doing that about every 4 months.

Any ideas how to encourage him to eat snails? There are a couple in there that are slightly too large but I just put another the right size and he won't eat them. I saw him dart at one of the larger ones (not big but slightly larger than eye size) but gave up on that quickly. You think it's possible his teeth are causing him to spit out the bloodworms? They look short to me but I'll read over the dentistry article again...

Crush them. If his teeth are overgrown (spitting out food is a good sign), you must do the dentistry. Can you get a good, close shot of his teeth?

Tried to take some photos but they came out blurry or you couldn't really see anything. Looks like he still has ich too. (Now that i examined him in full light). Can I change anything or stick with the higher temp water and salt? It looks slightly better, but still there. I will crush the snails. I just ordered some fin quell which should be here in a couple days so I can better examine and possibly do some dentistry.

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... 5A4E27.jpg

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... DF42C9.jpg

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i32 ... DF42C9.jpg

A few pics but you can't see his teeth...

Darn, I can't...

Just continue with the heat and salt treatment. SAPs almost turn up with Ich when moved.. at least mine did.. so, keep an eye on the new guy that's going to arrive as well.

I keep playing with those photos and after a while....his teeth look a little long to me...not a lot long, but enough to say that a high crunch diet is needed now.

Also...he is on the skinny side, does he look like he might have IPs to anyone else? Or does he look skinny from being under fed at the pet store?

To the op, have you seen him eat anything?

Yes, he's a bit thin. Does he hold his mouth open like that all the time?

Yes, I was wondering if he was thin as well. (Since i dont have others to compare him to). he arrived looking like that. For the first week or so he was eating bloodworms pretty heartily. I saw him eating "at" a larger snail today. I read that treating for internal parasites was important. I have some prazi pro and also found some gel tek ultra cure px at the pet store. Any suggestions for "de-worming?" Should I offer bloodworms or just snails then?

He does sort of hold his mouth like that all the time? I was wondering if that was normal...