The Puffer Forum

Ive kept 2 fahaka puffers in the last 5 years. My first once i bought as a little guy at around the 2 inch mark with absolutely no problems
But I ended up having to get rid of it due to being in a apartment and not being able to upgrade my tank size , had it in my 90g until it reached about the 11 inch mark . So the sad day came where i had to rehome it to a friend with a 240g tank

Now that ive bought a house and have my very own fish room i got lucky to find a new 2 inch fahaka once again and time has gone and im sitting with about a 9 inch puffer , very happy guy and would eat blood worm at first then moved it up to night crawlers and shrimp and then i got frozen crabs and finally as a treat ill throw in some live crawfish
I have a 120g tank and do about 40 percent weekly water change and running 4 sponge filters and a Aqua clear 110 , and no you can never have to much filtration lol
This puffer ive never had to treat for anything never come across any issues until recently. About 4 weeks ago it with out any reason I can see it stopped eating , no signs of any issues it of course has lost some weight but no cloudy eyes nothing wrong with the skin , and teeth are fine seems active and still very friendly It seems to really like its belly rubbed lol
So spend about 6 hours of research on to why its not eating and coming across no real answer .Its hard to treat for something you cant see
Ive tried to tempt it with every type of food i can think of with no luck until today where it went for blood worm of all things , I have 4 crawfish who now live with him in the tank , one crawfish was literally hiding underneath my puffer
But anyways very happy to see a little appetite return
Has anyone else come across this type of behaviour of not eating for a long period of time?

Please answer ALL the Qs above, in red.

While we wait for the qs in red to be answered. Have you noticed any white stringy feces? Unless more info is provided the only thing i could suggest is treating for internal parasites. I have to do this with my gsp whenever i feed live crayfish. If i dont withing a couple of weeks i see the white stringies and if still left untreated is when noticable behavior changes kick in.

Ph is 7.8
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
amonia 0
Nothing of concern I can see with water test or anything physicAL on the puffer .

Great thing is I came back to 2 Crawfish that where eaten .The puffer seems to be eating but I'm curios on to why he stopped

Why do you have 0 nitrate on a "cycled" tank???

Sorry nitrate is 20 ppm
Tds is 140 ppm
But I'm a bit concern with my phosphate level in my tap water which is 3.5 ppm are puffers sensitive to phosphates in higher levels ?

Nitrate is a bit high. Phosphates do not harm fish at all, even little delicate puffers. Sometimes if they are too high you'll get an algae bloom. TDS are fine.

Well it seems all is back to normal with the fahaka
eating well again
hmm ..... still no idea why it ever stopped ?