The Puffer Forum

My figure 8 (of 3 weeks or so) spends all day going up and down the glass in the corner like a tiger at the zoo. And is scared to death of me when i come up to the tank.

All water parameters are fine. And he is in a pretty well decorated 30 gal tank with lots to explore and only 2 mollies as tank mates (which he leaves alone).

He recently started turning his nose up to the usual diet of MYSIS shrimp. I tried snails and he liked those, but i havent set up a good stock pile yet, and his belly doesnt get full. He has also turned his nose up at frozen and freeze dried krill, freeze dried blood worms, freeze dried plankton, and frozen brine. He takes them in his mouth, but spits what looks like most of it out again.

any tips ???

What are your exact water parameters? How did you cycle the tank?

the tank had been cycled for 10 weeks or so with two mollies before i added the F8

nitrAtes 20 (at the highest) - i change when goes above 20
nitrItes 0
Water is hard and fairly alkaline (dont have the exact #s at work with me)
SG 1.009

Two guesses, presuming the ammonia is okay. One, not enough decor or its not to his liking. You can try rearranging the decor and see if that helps. Or two, the two mollies are bothering him, even if its just by reason of all the movement going on around him.

Thanks!!!

ill check the ammonia -- i normally just check the nitrAtes and if that is in-line, i assume the ammonia is OK (which may not be the case) -- if ammonia is present, are water changes the best course of action ?

as far a decor goes, i just added some stuff, cause i thought that might be the case -- its pretty crowded now (which looks awesome!) --

the mollies are indeed quite active and this might be annoying him -- he doesnt ever get aggressive towards them, but he does look "annoyed" from time to time (if a fish can look annoyed)

thanks again,

mike

has he done this since you got him?
has he always turned down freeze dried food?

reason i ask is, the first few weeks i had my f8 puffer, he just paced up and down the tank all day. and he still will not eat freeze dried food and will only eat live food and tropical pellets

when i got my second puffer, he actually stopped pacing pretty much completely, except when he begs for food now.

in answer to ur ammonia question, if i ever have a spike in my tank i do a 20% ish water change and that normally sorts it out.

for the first 2 weeks he gobbled up frozen mysis shrimp and frozen brine shrimp - never tried freeze-dried (didnt have to) -- now, im trying everything ---

he's always been kinda scared of people close up to the tank, but when it was feeding time, hed get friendly real quick -- not any more

havent had a chance to get live ghost shrimp yet ,, but itll be hard to keep that up if that's all he'll eat ---

im gonna try more snails and frozen blood worms tonight --