The Puffer Forum

Hello, im new on this forum. I bought a puffer about 4 weeks ago which my brother has been keeping for me in a quarantine tank whilst my tank cycled. I got him home yesterday, he seemed fine. This morning i was watching him and as he was swimming towards the filter end of my tank he was puffing up! It's worried me because i have read that puffers only puff when they are under severe stress. Does anybody know why he's doing this?
He is kept in a 50 litre tank and he's about 2" long. He is in FW at the mo but im gonna start raising the salinity with water changes. I tested the water yesterday and all the levels are good. Nitrite=0, ammonia=0 and nitrate=20ppm.
Also, is gravel ok as a substrate for these little angels of death?
And, he will only eat live food!! I had to give him a snail out of my other tank last night. Anybody know of any good ways to get them onto frozen? [/img]

Was the quarantine tank FW?

yeah, the quarantine tank was fw. Is it worrying that hes been puffing up?

How did you cycle the tank?

Keep an eye on the parameters and be prepared to do water changes... That's the best advice I can give you.

Puffing is most commonly a sign of anxiety, but not always. If your puffer was puffing multiple times in rapid succession, that's cause for concern. Other times, they will just puff for no reason.

Spending time hovering near the surface or curled up on the floor is another sign of stress. See how it goes in the next few days and let us know!

For me, young puffers have puffed in what I have to assume is simple "practice", testing the mechanism as it were. That sort of puffing is not stress. Puffing while being chased with a net, lifted from the tank, threatened by another fish, etc. are all responses to stressful situations. Big difference.

To get him to eat frozen, you could try soaking it in water with some crushed garlic. The garlic stimulates the puffer to eat and it also wards off parasites. It work a treat when I first got my puffer.

What frozen food are you feeding him. Mine has gone off bloodworms since I stopped soaking them but he can't get enough frozen prawns, cockles or krill. Anything that smells really fishy basically. However he does eat the odd pea or two

Any green that the fish will take is a plus.