Amazon Puffer suddenly withdrawing
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2025 12:17 pm
Hi, I’m not new to the hobby, but I’m a bit newer to certain puffers.
I keep peas, a spotted Congo juvenile, and two red eye dwarfs. My current predicament is my Amazon puffer.
He’s in a temporary cycled 15 gallon, it cycled for a month with water a sand from an established tank. He’s approximately 1 1/2 inch in length. He came to me very malnourished and seemingly in shock. But, I got him to munch on blood worms, black worms, earth worms, and the occasional bladder snail (he doesn’t seem to like snails so now I have a healthy population in the tank). I plan on moving him to a single species 20 gallon, where he can be on his own.
Currently, he shares the tank with one male and two female Poecilia sphenops wild caught green mollies. Those are his only neighbors. They do not interact. Those three fish are excellent. There are 4 adult rabbit snails as well, part of the clean up crew with the bladder snails.
He has two air stones and a lovely sponge filter creating a gentle current. He has a heater set to 76 F. Tank has an abundance of guppy grass, jungle Val, some cholla wood, and a decorative glass bottle I added during cycling. I might remove the bottle cause I feel it might trap food. I do remove it and clean it weekly but to be honest, I can’t really see it in the veg so I might as well remove it.
They are fed every other day. I do 25-50% water changes weekly cause I know puffers are high polluters.
He is my only wild caught specimen and I feel he is not doing well because of this. My LFS had him in a 10 with another female of the same size. They both appeared sickly but he was better off than her.
As for water parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 15
Nitrites 0
pH 7.5
Using prime dechlorinator.
Like I said, I have puffers. They’re ALL active and interactive. This guy seemed to be doing well. Then… he wasn’t. Now he sits in the corner looking stressed, in the back of the tank. He was so greedy and now he’s not eating at all. I’m very worried for the little guy. He’s no longer round and plump. But he’s refusing to eat.
I keep peas, a spotted Congo juvenile, and two red eye dwarfs. My current predicament is my Amazon puffer.
He’s in a temporary cycled 15 gallon, it cycled for a month with water a sand from an established tank. He’s approximately 1 1/2 inch in length. He came to me very malnourished and seemingly in shock. But, I got him to munch on blood worms, black worms, earth worms, and the occasional bladder snail (he doesn’t seem to like snails so now I have a healthy population in the tank). I plan on moving him to a single species 20 gallon, where he can be on his own.
Currently, he shares the tank with one male and two female Poecilia sphenops wild caught green mollies. Those are his only neighbors. They do not interact. Those three fish are excellent. There are 4 adult rabbit snails as well, part of the clean up crew with the bladder snails.
He has two air stones and a lovely sponge filter creating a gentle current. He has a heater set to 76 F. Tank has an abundance of guppy grass, jungle Val, some cholla wood, and a decorative glass bottle I added during cycling. I might remove the bottle cause I feel it might trap food. I do remove it and clean it weekly but to be honest, I can’t really see it in the veg so I might as well remove it.
They are fed every other day. I do 25-50% water changes weekly cause I know puffers are high polluters.
He is my only wild caught specimen and I feel he is not doing well because of this. My LFS had him in a 10 with another female of the same size. They both appeared sickly but he was better off than her.
As for water parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 15
Nitrites 0
pH 7.5
Using prime dechlorinator.
Like I said, I have puffers. They’re ALL active and interactive. This guy seemed to be doing well. Then… he wasn’t. Now he sits in the corner looking stressed, in the back of the tank. He was so greedy and now he’s not eating at all. I’m very worried for the little guy. He’s no longer round and plump. But he’s refusing to eat.
