The Puffer Forum

Hi, newbie to the forums here (and to keeping puffers though not fish in general).

I have a slightly bizarre question: my F8 puffer who is generally happy and healthy, has for the last two evenings spent a short while after feeding rubbing up and down the front of the glass and baring his beak. This is the first time I've noticed this behaviour.

I normally feed bloodworm on day 1, brineshimp on day 2, and shell-on-food mussel on day 3. He also gets a currently irregular supply of snails (say one small one from one of my other tanks every 4 days) though this will change now that i am breeding ramshorns.

The beak does not look overgrown, and you can't normally see it as he swims about, only when he decides to show it this way.

He's not aggressive (so far) either, though when I first saw him doing this I did start to wonder if my fingers would ever be safe again lol.

Is it a problem with his diet, or is it just his behaviour? Am I being paranoid?! :S

I think he's starting to realize that you = food and he's just trying to get your attention/food.

And welcome to the forum!

Yes, my SAP did that as well back when I first got him. Its more of a begging thing, he sees you and wants food.

If you can make the tank a little more interesting, that should distract him some, plus he'll eventually learn that he isn't going to get fed every single time you walk by.

Of course to be on the safe side, double check your water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) to make sure he isn't stressed by bad conditions at all, sometimes under stress they behave in odd ways.

Thanks for the advice! Glad it's not something serious
Water conditions are fine (0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, and I had 20 Nitrate until yesterday when I did a partial water change): I measure twice a week, do twice weekly water changes of 15-20% and am slowly building up the salinity (he's in 1.002 right now, and I'm aiming for the 1.005 I heard was good for them).

I never thought I would hear myself saying this over the many years of keeping fish and being obsessed with l o a c h e s (the spell checker is flipping out on me with that word for some reason) thinking they were 'the most smart', but I actually think my puffer is the most intelligent fish I've ever kept :O