The Puffer Forum

Hello, I'm new to this forum. I've had my Stars & Stripes puffer for about 3 years. He's my absolute favorite fish! We just upgraded his tank a few weeks ago to one that is double the size of his old tank. He's loving all tge room and seems to eve b have gotten a little bigger since the move, but I think that every time we upgrade his tank. Since tge upgrade though I've noticed he's puffing up, all the time! We've never seen him puff so often. It used to be a rare thing to see him puff but now it's so often we've got dozens of videos and photos of him puffed. He's very active and healthy, no different than his normal self, besides the puffing. He seems to puff a lot in the mornings. I wouldn't say I'm worried because everything is fine and normal, just he's puffing more. It used to be a rare surprise to see him puff but now its 1-3 times a week. Why? Is he stressed? What could he be stressed about? Or is he just wanting attention? I read some powers will puff for attention. I love my big guy and I couldn't handle it if something where to happen to him.

Welcome to the forum, I moved this to the hospital section. Please answer all questions above in red

1.) We have a friend that owns a fish store that checks or water and it was normal two days ago and has been for a while.
2.) Tank is 225 gallon with my puffer, who is huge and two very small fish maroon clown and pj cardinal and a engineer goby.
3.) His feeding is once a day, a variety of stuff clams & mussels, shrimp, squid, sometimes cray fish, those little silver fish, seaweed. We do a 10% water change once a week. We add salt, don't remember the brand.
4.) No changes in the last week.
5.) The new tank has been up almost a month, maybe 3 weeks. For cycling it we used all the water from the tank that had been set up, we used the same filter material in the sump, from the established tank. We pretty much used everything from the established tank, sponges, rock, sand. We also used this stuff called Prime in a white bottle with red label.

I think that's it.

Is the tank in a new spot? Near doors that open and close? More action near the tank? Anything red colored?
Puffers consider 20ft out side of their tank to be theirs. If something is different, they can see it

Ask them for hard numbers, what shops consider normal can be very bad for fish long term. If you are using filters I would expect your nitrate levels to be high when you pair that with 10% weekly water changes .

Interesting, but no. The tank is in the same spot in our bed room, but the tank now is maybe 2ft longer. We do have a few bright red things in our room, but nothing that is new. We have a red pillow and a red can, but we've always had them, I would think he's seen them a lot by now they're in no way new. Also he is near a door way, but he's always been next to it. His puffing does not seem to correlate with when someone walks through the door way, it's more like when we're sitting in the room not doing anything or when I've just woke up and got out of bed. Not fresh out of bed though, I get out of bed and sit next to his tank every morning and check my phone and email and maybe a half hour to an hour later he puffs, while I'm sitting there. This is all the same as it has always been though. Definitely nothing new in the room or our routine, but his bigger tank.

He's funny though and when ever my husband goes through the doorway he thinks it's feeding time and comes to the top corner of his tank all happy and excited

I would really doubt that the water was bad, our friend that owns the store has specialized in saltwater fish for over 30 years. I doubt if our water was bad he'd say it was good. He's warned us before when nitrates were close to high or when they were high. I trust him 100% that if he says it's normal it's not approaching high.

Puffers are very sensitive and cannot endure nitrate levels that other fish do. 20ppm is max for puffer tanks, I just think in a tank using mechanical filtration combined with a large puffer and 10% weekly water changes nitrates would naturally be high. Are there any air fresheners in the room?

Could be a territorial thing. "Hey, you other fishes! See this new tank we are in? It mine. Anybody wants to start some stuff, just wanna let you know how big I get. Yeah, that's what I thought..You guys go hide under some rocks or something. I'm gonna patrol this area cause it's mine...You guys hear me! Mine!"
He's probably gotten settled and has confirmed he is top dog.

I'm not still not fully sure the difference between bio and mechanical filter but I always thought ours was a bio. I just looked up our sumps and it says they're bio-filters, they've got huge protein skimmers in them too.

There's no air fresheners, we sprayed the outside of the house in the beginning of the summer with a bug spray to keep out silver fish, that was never inside the house though.

Anything that collects detritus is mechanical. Filtration for SW tanks = live rock & protein skimmer--period.

purplecandle wrote:Could be a territorial thing. "Hey, you other fishes! See this new tank we are in? It mine. Anybody wants to start some stuff, just wanna let you know how big I get. Yeah, that's what I thought..You guys go hide under some rocks or something. I'm gonna patrol this area cause it's mine...You guys. Hear me! Mine!"
He's probably gotten settled and has confirmed he is top dog.

LOL!!! Thats something I could imagine him saying if he could talk the other fish do spend a lot of time hiding in the rocklls while he patrols the tank. It's absolutely his tank and they definitely know it. I never was very worried about his puffing and suspected it was for attention or for show. So your explanation does make sense to me. When I found this forum I was happy to see so many people like me that loved they're puffers and I was curious if there was any technical explanation about why my guy was puffing more often now. I appreciate your help everyone

My fish guy confirmed that we have a bio filter system.

If there is any filter material at all in your system, it will collect nitrate in it & needs to be removed or rinsed every few days.

If there is any filter material at all in your system, it will collect nitrate in it & needs to be removed or rinsed every few days.