The Puffer Forum

So I had a little puffer emergency this morning and I was just looking for some insight. I turned on the light this morning to find one of my puffers in the process of taking a chunk out of another. I actually thought the puffer being bitten was dead because the biter was swimming backwards dragging the other puffer along, definitely not typical nipping. The bitten puffer has a decent chunk missing now from behind the eye. I moved her to a 5 gallon and she seems to be doing ok.

I suspect that the biter is a male puffer by the way he acts. He is smaller then my other puffers and has exhibited mating behavior (chasing and nibbling and displaying to the female still in the tank) However I think he looks like a female to me - I don't notice the eye wrinkles, no belly stripe and his coloring seems the same to me as the females. If it wasn't for his behavior I would totally think he was a female. I've added a picture of him to this post so you guys can tell me what you think. If it helps I've had these puffers for 8 months.

What I'm trying to figure out is if this sudden aggression might be mating behavior or simply too many puffers in the tank (3 in a 20 gal)? Should I attempt to reintroduce the bitten puffer at some point? (I'm leaning toward keeping her separate) And lastly, if you guys think my puffer is really a female, is it common for a female to take on the male role in mating behavior? The first picture is the puffer in question, who acts like a male but I don't think looks like one, the second picture is of my female who is still in the tank with him.

I definitely would not keep males together in a 20g tank. I hope this is not the case. Is the tank heavily decorated?

Heres a pic of the tank


Do you think both of the puffers look like the same sex?

Wow, what a great piece of driftwood! It's really hard to tell from the pics. I always look for wrinkles behind their eyes.

Pufferpunk wrote:Wow, what a great piece of driftwood! It's really hard to tell from the pics. I always look for wrinkles behind their eyes.

Thanks It's actually 2 pieces of driftwood (and a piece of dragon stone that was holding one down until it became waterlogged but I never took it out ) I purposely picked ones that would have lots of nooks and crannies to break up the puffers view of each other.

My pictures are terrible I know - I'll have to get the BF to break out the good camera one of these days instead of using the stupid phone camera!