Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 6:07 pm
Just curious if anyone's been brave enough to try it..my GSP's just try to eat my fingers!
Not my fish, but this is why tongs exist.
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Do your puffers let you pet them?
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Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 7:24 pm
Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 8:12 pm
Until about a week ago I had two Amazon Puffers, and they both let me pet them, but one of them did bite. It hurt a little, but the bites never broke the skin.
Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 9:29 pm
Where's the excitement in tongs! Gotta get the heart rate up!grup wrote:Not my fish, but this is why tongs exist.
How did you move your hand so they would let them pet you? Did you let them swim into your palm or just put your fingers into the top of the tank or something else?pufferjw wrote:Until about a week ago I had two Amazon Puffers, and they both let me pet them, but one of them did bite. It hurt a little, but the bites never broke the skin.
Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 9:05 am
My GSP has acquired a taste for human flesh. There is no petting.
Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 3:40 pm
Update: They let me pet them! Well, kind of. So at the top of the tank, if I put my finger in front of their face then they just try to bite me, but if I come in behind their head they tolerate me petting them briefly. Key word here is tolerate! I'm sure they're thinking "what is this idiot doing".
Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 6:08 pm
To Bigpuff
I would just pick up a snail and hold it at the top of the water, then while my puffers ate it I could pet them. But my one puffer, Balloon, couldn't differentiate the snail from my finger.
I would just pick up a snail and hold it at the top of the water, then while my puffers ate it I could pet them. But my one puffer, Balloon, couldn't differentiate the snail from my finger.
Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 10:20 pm
Lol @ Hillehaus. What happens when it's time for tank maintenance?
I haven't tried petting my DP, altho she eats out of my finger. I did have a betta as a child, and he was very tactile. I cld stroke him all the way down to his tail, and during weekly tank cleaning, all I had to do was cup my palm, and he'll swim onto it, and lay there while I manually scooped him up into his holding bowl. I wld also put him in his holding bowl sometimes just so I cld carry him around. We watched TV together, mostly.
I haven't tried petting my DP, altho she eats out of my finger. I did have a betta as a child, and he was very tactile. I cld stroke him all the way down to his tail, and during weekly tank cleaning, all I had to do was cup my palm, and he'll swim onto it, and lay there while I manually scooped him up into his holding bowl. I wld also put him in his holding bowl sometimes just so I cld carry him around. We watched TV together, mostly.
Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 3:53 am
None of my puffers do. My beta does though.
Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2015 11:37 pm
When I do tank maintenance, my dwarf and amazon puffers will all observe the gravel pump but keep a fair distance. However, my red congo puffer absolutely freaks out until he sees a red cherry shrimp and tries to catch it for 10 minutes straight, now ignoring the pump.
Re: Do your puffers let you pet them?
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:18 pm
My husband feeds our dwarf puffers by hand (while I take blurry pictures 
).
Not sure if that counts, but they do play 'Tug-of-war' with the bloodworms...
).Not sure if that counts, but they do play 'Tug-of-war' with the bloodworms...