The Puffer Forum

Hello Guys,

I am new to this community and I was directed to this site by Sarah Malone from Facebook.I have a few doubts about my new Puffers I bought 2 days back.
When I bought them, from the pet shop, I was told that they are omnivores and will eat almost anything, and that they need no special care. But when I took them
home, they were active initially, and ate all my zebra danios, and were moving around actively. I did a water change and suddenly they became sedentary and stopped moving even their fins. Now they are some what active but most of the time they are resting in one corner of my aquarium. And to make things worse, they are not feeding. I googled about puffers and also asked in a FB group and found out that they are carnivorous. I tried giving them freeze dried Tubifex and even live earth worm with no success. My aquarium is of 100 liter capacity and it is planted moderately..It is fitted with a Filter and there is coarse gravel in the bottom. Other fishes are 2 gold fishes , two silver carps..I am uploading the pictures of my puffer .I don't know which variety it is and the requirements for them..
kindly help me by specifying
1, Type of my puffer
2, Reason for not feeding ( I am not in a position to provide them with live feed, so kindly provide alternatives)
3, Any changes in my aquarium that should be done to keep them happy.
4, Any other suggestions

So glad you found us! Your puffers are Ceylons: ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Brackish/T_Fluviatilis/

Care & feeding exactly the same as the GSP, although they grow a bit larger & need a minimum of 40g ea: library/puffers-in-focus/an-introductio ... d-puffers/
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/

BTW, that LFS is full of idiots!!!

Test your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate & post here.

Thanks for the reply

I'm sorry I may not be able to do the tests of ammonia nitrate because In my place , it is not available. I am using water from a water well for my aquarium and that contains very less, ( or no ) salt.and I'm sure ammonia levels will be normal because i am doing a weekly 40% water change..and my puffers are only 1.5 inch in length now.
Today I even tried live feed (zebra danios which were swimming in front of my puffers)..but they are not eating anything for the past 3 days.And Today I noticed that one of them was arching its tail to one side as if it was experiencing muscle spasm of that side and was not moving at all, ( i even tried touching it to make it move!!)
Should i do something urgently,( like adding salt ) or should i wait for them to acclimatize ?

i posted a reply but its not appearing!!

I see your reply. Did you read all those articles I linked you to?

Yes I've read them all.Those articles are superb and contains all that is needed for a puffer lover.I understand that its a brackish water puffer, which was grown in fresh water.I am trying to increase the salinity gradually.But my concern is they are not feeding from the day I brought them.And that weird behavior of one of my puffers concerns me which i explained earlier.Now they seems better and occasionally makes visits to the other areas of the tank.They have been starving for the past 4 days.Will they eventually accept feeds or is there anything i can do about that?

Hi Pufferpunk,
It was me that gave the link to the forum for help after he posted in a discus group,
Vinu lives in India in an area with well water and often have trouble sourcing things we take for granted in the USA and UK, from what he said he is willing to return them to the shop if needed but I felt it would be in the puffs interest to help him keep them properly as the shop sound like ..well you know......

Try soaking their food in some crushed garlic, sounds odd but can work

I agree--those puffers sound doomed if returned. The fish you have with them will not tolerate ANT salt. Can you set up a separate tank for the puffers? MUCH larger will be necessary, like 90-100 gallons (350 L)?

I agree--those puffers sound doomed if returned. The fish you have with them will not tolerate ANT salt. Can you set up a separate tank for the puffers? MUCH larger will be necessary, like 90-100 gallons (350 L)?

Yes..I can do that.But they are currently only 1.5 inches length .If they start growing, then I will defenitely be shifting them to a larger tank.They seems to familiarise with faces very fast!..Now they are making quick visits to see if some one is near the aquarium..
The Garlic thing didn't work though.One improvement I noted with garlic was they seems to be attracted to food.

Can you get them live worms? If they won't eat that, then I'm afraid they may have other issues.

I gave them earthworms and sadly they're not eating.