The Puffer Forum

This is my second pea puffer within 2 weeks that won't eat. This time I got live bloodworms too in addition to frozen brine shrimp, daphnia and blood worms. There are pond snails in my aquarium of various sizes, but I've never seen any puffer take a bite. I can't seem to figure out why puffers die in my aquarium.

Here's my set up:
20 gallon long, 2 year cycled planted tank with CO2.
Tons of dwarf hair grass and stem rotala, so decent hiding places.
Community fish include Cardinal tetra, rummy nose and celestial pearl danios. All peaceful.

Water parameters consistently:
PH: 6.6-6.8
GH: 3
KH: 3
Nitrate: 20-30 ppm
TDS: 190

Help please

Nitrate is a bit high. Ammonia/nitrite? Bullied by tankmates?
https://www.pufferfishenthusiastsworldw ... vancoricus

I"ll do a water change and rinse my canister filter in it tonight.
Any other recommendations for getting a puffer to eat?

Is it a lonely, starving myself to death behavior? Since I have a 20 gallon long, should I consider getting 5 more puffer fish? I understand it's a risk for the other community fish (cardinal & rummynose tetras and pearl danios).

I did a 20% water change like usual. This time I rinsed the canister filter components with the tank water. It was a bit dirty, but I still did a light rinse and not too thorough of a clean as to maintain the bacteria and not change the water parameters too much too fast.

Woke up and found the puffer dead.

I really getting attached to puffers and want to try again, but I don't know why they won't eat and I don't know how to adjust my water parameters any more.

Tested my nitrates this morning and got it down to about 10ppm range.

Is there anything else I should do? Or should I not try puffers at all given repeated failures and not being able to identify the issue?

Are you buying them from the same source? Make sure your next ones eat in front of you before purchasing. You could use a 20g but puffers only.

I get them all from the same source; a highly recognized LF in the bay area. We did drop a worm in the tank, but only a few went after it; most were just calm and ignored it. They had about 30 puffers inside a 10 gallon breeder.

Is it bad long term to just have 1 or 2 puffers in a community tank? If a minimum of 6 is highly recommended, then i'll pass on this species until i decide to do a puffer only tank.

I do believe if the fish are larger or faster than the puffers, they will be stressed.