The Puffer Forum

My new abei puffer came yesterday from divers den. Seemed fine yesterday, even ate a little, but today it seemed stressed. Resting at top of tank, breathing fast, no interest in food. Hope it will pull though

How was the tank cycled before you got him? Pics?

I had a school of 30 tetras, a breeding pair of rams and a pleco in for two years. I think I did the fishless cycle if I remember correctly. I got suspicious and tested the ammonia, it spiked, somewhere between 1 and 2. So I did 50 percent water change, and used api ammonia lock. When I get home from work, I plan to do another water change and continue to monitor the ammonia and nitrate. I think the spike was caused by two things, one my wife fed a clam and left it intoo long, and two, there was a tetra that I missed, the puffer shredded it. I don’t know how long it was in there. The fish looked much better this morning .

Hi, I looked into Divers den and did not seem to find any freshwater abei puffers.
Feel free to chat about how to find a true abei or how find the website.
We're in the US too.

I can't help with your current tank issue, but I do have a tip for your future puffer tank.

In my tanks, I experienced a lesson learned for leftovers.
-larger species of puffers...
Add fry***

A simple (symbiotic) relationship between the larger fish and the fry seems to work well vs. time.
The 5 inch Turgidus puffer pair and a 6 inch palembangensis puffer pair can't catch the fry easily or at all.
The fry peck away at food chunks, but can only do so much.
These fry age and "eventually become a food reserve" as Mod/Pufferpunk stated in the past.
I agree.
They usually get eaten in the night.
When the lights are out, the guppies may be in a sleep state.

I personally see the small cutcutia puffer pair or even the paulustris puffers getting a hold of the fry in short time though.
Smaller 2-4 inch puffers are quite fast and seem to not give up so easily.
They terminate the prey items.
Absolute machines.

Observation:
Bigger puffers + small fry.
-Reduces leftovers slightly.
-adds bioload slightly (fry or living house keepers).


"Try" bare bottom styles for cleaner tanks, then add substrate later if you feel the need.
I have been running mostly all bare bottom puffer tanks with added sandbar/beach style smooth rocks from the stream in the backyard.
Plants are a plus if they work out. I'm about to turn a small 20gallon over to a small puffer this weekend.
Some puffers like to chomp on wires and plant stems as a food test or something.
All my puffer tanks are so different.
I'm still learning.

Some like half lighted LED and half darkness and driftwood.
Some even like half current flow and fuller current flow on the opposite end.
It gives them lighting and water current choices.

As for the real world, I was amazed at how bare the stream was for vegetation in the video I saw about a wild puffer in Thailand.
The end of the video (posted below) near the 3:15 min minute point has the part where he comes out of the water and shows what the stream and forest look like.


Freshwater puffer fish and Cryptocoryne albida in Sok River, Thailand
DiscoveryPlanetuk
Published on Feb 12, 2019 on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BkYIrCYJaw

(video) If that was not a puffer in the river I would have sworn the video was taken in OH, PA or Michigan or something close.
I was pretty blown away at how similar the creek looked.
There may be crayfish and weird grubs under those rocks.
Lots of hidden foods.

Great camouflage for its environment, huh?
I like your observations. Hard to believe you have successful pairs with no injuries!

Pufferpunk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2019 11:04 pm Great camouflage for its environment, huh?
I like your observations. Hard to believe you have successful pairs with no injuries!

Pufferpunk,
I re-read this thread a bit. I see what I did there if the "successful pairs with no injuries" text was in my direction.
The word "pair" should have been replaced with "set". Thanks for pointing that out.

Two of the same species can be so different. It's a pleasure to see the shipment of two puffers (set) and the differences.
Some of the shy ones come around after a while. They are either small species in 48 inch divider tanks, community or alone as normal.

I wouldn't believe much of any successful "mating pair" chatter until I saw it myself as for puffers and would not recommend placing 2 puffers together unless they have broken lines of sight as well as being the "community" species in general.

Pufferpunk,
What does the camo observation question mean to clarify?

Also, how is the DiversDen Abei from dmh41532?

These Abei are the chunky species that got us into the Asian freshwater puffers.
As most have seen or read, the Abei and Turgidus mix up is a common thing to look for when making an Abei purchase.

It’s doing much better. It’s eating feeder shrimp and silversides well. Sorry for the short and late reply. We recently had a baby, and he’s keeping us busy, along with our 3 year old. I’ll attach a picture of the fish, can someone id it? It was hiding because I did a water change. It’s currently in a heavily planted tank with some drift wood.