The Puffer Forum

Hello this is my. First post here!

I got a dp (called Peanut) on Sunday and I believe he's been doing fine. He's eating snails and I believe he's eating fine.
I noticed today he was having trouble 'catching' snails (as in he went to bite it and missed bit I'm not sire if that's him having a bad aim lol).
I the. Wiggle a dead snail (I crushed it) in front of him and he bit a bit off but spat it out straight away. It was a big-ish piece and it looked kind of like cotten.

He the. Found a snail and actually got some of it in his mouth and he swallowed it, but it looked like it may have been a bit difficult to do.

I think he has a round belly however im not sure what this looks like so can you guys post a PIC of what it looks like and.....
Can you also post a pic of a dp with a sunken belly so I can see if he has IPs

Also (lol) can you tell me anymore reasons why he would spit out food.

Thanks
Here's a pic or two of his stomach, not the best sorry.
http://imgur.com/Mzb5K0W
http://imgur.com/bai4K18

Looks like a nice healthy specimen to me!
Try live/frozen/freeze-dried blackworms, frozen/freeze-dried mysis & plankton, too.

Im new to puffs myself too (had mine a couple months ish now). Ive found with my trio, when it comes to snails, theyll either slurp half of the snail out of the shell, leaving the rest to rot. Or, Ill crush the snail (a couple times depending on the size of the snail) and drop it in with a dropper right in front of them. Theres still some that gets missed, and some they spit out.. but theyre messy eaters in general. Its taken quite awhile to get them trained onto crushed snails. Give him some time

Sounds good .

So if he spits out frozen bloodworms is it because he's not used to eating them? He knows they're food he just can't really swallow them. Snails on the other hand....well he's a pro at eating them. Problem is I have a finite supply of snails...

Fish can't chew their food - it's not uncommon for many fish to take in big pieces of food, spit it out,and then do it again until they are full or the food is gone. Your puffer looks good in the pics but if you are worried about parasites you can always treat him. Treating for parasites when they don't have any won't hurt him, just make sure you add the medicine to the food and not to the tank.
Also, watch out cherry shrimp! Puffers like cherry shrimp yum yum!

So when he spits it out he could be swallowing tiny buts of it? Surprisingly the cherry shtim and puffer coincide well together. He ignores them unless they're eating something he wants to nibble lol.

His stomach does look rounder now after I dropped about 5 snails in to the bowl. However rondid notice on the left side of his stomcah he has a small black/brown dot. Any idea what this is? It can't be an ammonia burn because if that much ammonia was present the shrimp would have gone crazy and probably died...

He ate 2 bloodworms yesterday! I noticed he sometimes spita out the white casing around the worm and swallows the red bit inside

Here's some pics of his stomach today. Still looks relatively healthy?
http://imgur.com/2hbhN0R
http://imgur.com/HbdVhI3
http://imgur.com/MULZyGO

I've also noticed he's been glass surfing a lot today for some reason, probably because he's a bit hungry

Yes, he looks fine.

I noticed you mentioned it couldn't be ammonia burn, etc.

Is there a reason you have a worry that there is ammonia present in the tank? Is your tank cycled? Do you test your water parameters w/ a liquid test kit?

Puffer fish are also extremely sensitive to ammonia.

Also, what kind of filter are you using in the fish bowl? Puffers are messy eaters, and have a heavy bioload for their size. It is highly recommended to over-filter.

There's no worry that there's ammonia as the bowls been cycled for almost 4 months, I was just listing possibilities as black spots can sometimes mean ammonia is present.

The filter is a hob that's rated at 180 l/h

Great news everyone! He's eaten so much that his tummy (for a about 20 mins was massive and round). It still is round but not as round. I don't think he likes bloodworms that much but he'll still eat them.

He now knows the tweezers I use means food's around. He ate a snail from the tweezers and the innards of a wax worm (googled it and people feed these when they first get their puffers). I'm happy that he'll now essentially hand feed dead food instead of only eating snails! Even the shrimp have tried to eat from to tweezers lol

Wonderful! Good puffertraining.

Thanks!

One quick question. He seems to be glass surfing around 80% of the time ( he stops when I come up to the bowl or he sees something interesting like the shrimp). Why is this
Happening after a week of being in the tank. Surely he's not bored?

I didn't check to see if you posted a picture of the tank but, how decorated is the tank? The more nooks and crannies the better.