The Puffer Forum

My baby 3 inch faharka puffer has suddenly taken ill, he has been in this large tank over 3 months and he was tiny when I got him, a few days ago I noticed the tank looked like it needed a good scrub due to algae on glass ect, even thought I did weekly 20% water changes, no ammonia no nitrites ect, anyway I decided to pop in a large bristlenose Plec to clean all the ornaments , I popped a a large lobworm to fill up my puffer thinking this might help him leave the Plec alone, next day I noticed the Pleco was dead, since then my puffer hasn’t eaten is swimming strangely, going round in circles, I’m so confused what it could be, was it the lob worm, that killed the Pleco and has now made the puffer sick? I wasn’t impressed with the substrate the lobworms were in , like a moss and chopped up coloured newspaper, I did some water tests yesterday and all is good, did a 20%water change, any ideas?

How large was this worm? Does it look like the puffer ate all or some of it? Where did the pleco come from? How large is the tank?

He ate only half the worm. The pleco was from another tank of mine. The tank is 50 gallon

It doesn't make a lot of sense, that's for sure! Did you remove the other half of the worm? Maybe he ate too much? No idea why the pleco died...

Bad news shrimpy died yesterday, all I can think of him n the Plec had a fight, and the trauma took the Plec first, swimming happily in there now is some rosy barbs and all is well nothing wrong with water , I’m thinking of replacing him with a spotted Congo puffer as I really miss shrimpy, thanks for your help x

I'm so sorry... Since you don't really know for sure the reason behind these deaths, I suggest leaving the tank fallow for a month. Continue feeding it ammonia, to keep it cycled.

Good advice thanks x