The Puffer Forum

Ok, look I know I am being a woos here but I am new to puffers and I am not going to loose this fish, so no grief please, there are personal reasons why this has become a challenge for me.

I am not new to fish we have a pond outside plus a 40-gallon tropical and 15-gallon Oranda tanks in the house.

My new F8 is very shy and very picky with food, he wont touch frozen at the moment, tried with live bloodworms and brine shrimp with no problem. I have set up a snail tank thanks to earlier advice and he’s has had a few as treats.

Garlic with his food, can I take shop brought fresh garlic and soak in water and add a few drops of that to his frozen food when defrosting?

Is it normal that he spends most of the day hiding?

He paces up and down as if he’s bored, but I have lots of ornaments etc

I am treating him for a nipped fin with melafix that he had when I got him

Should I get some primafix and dose as a precaution?

Tank is 70 litres, starting adding salt at 1.002 per week to end up as brackish, ammonia zero, nitrates less than 40 ppm, ph a little low at 7.2 but with the marine salt I expect this to rise to about 8.0

I am going to re decorate the tank and increase his water to 1.004 next week, probably xmas day as the TV will be cr*p.

Am I being too impatient, if so what should I do?

How long have you had him for?
It can take a few weeks for them to get settled in. I would let the little guy adjust to his new home before worrying too much.
I would keep trying different foods. With frozen foods try to make it look like its alive. Like bloodworms flowing through current or putting foods through a skewer and moving it around. My puffers associate most things falling down to the bottom as food, from snails being dropped into the tank.
For store bought garlic I would chop it up and mix with water/food.
If its only torn fins melafix alone should be good enough.

As far as the garlic goes, I'd try Seachem's "Garlic Guard", found at your LFS.
It comes in liquid form in a bottle. I used it to feed my figure 8's medicated bloodworms, and eventually to teach them that snails are food; they seemed to love it. Just soak their food in it in a small separate container.

My Figure 8's never hide, but they do pace... in my experience it is a normal trait of the species, my tanks are heavily decorated as well. It seems they enjoy cruising up and down the glass, for whatever reason.

I agree that Melafix should be enough for a nipped fin, no need to heavily medicate.

Thanks, I have had him two weeks, will go and get some garlic guard

i found a new background stopped my new F8 pacing but might have just been that he settled in?

Mine all stopped pacing when I added a background to the tanks. Dunno why, I think they feel more secure.

has it got anything to do with reflections? mines got a very tastful super moto back ground and he loves it

The background is plain black, but he paces on one side, near my monitor, I don't think he's interested in surfing the net.

Heh, you'd be surprised bosshog! I used to regularly turn round to see lil puffs eyes watching me type away on the forums He was obviously thinking "tut tut, my owner knows nothing, I wish I could yell the right answer" lol.

They love attention, so I guess pacing is part of that esp. if you're in the same room. Mine used to beg for food by 'baring' his beak at me lol. Naughty little things sometimes!

Btw, all of your plans sound ok to me: you only need the melafix if it's just a damaged fin. You can treat with pimafix as a precaution if you think your puffer has arrived with other ailments (i.e. fungus, infections, etc.), because its herbal. But, tbh, the less treatments you have to add to the water in general the better so I'd just stick with melafix for now.

You can up the salinity quite slowly also, it doesnt need to be a rush. Brackish puffers are used to varying degrees of salinity in the wild as they move about, and 'brackish' itself is a type of water that varies in degree of salinity (i.e. the further up the river you go, the more FW it is, the further to the mouth you go the saltier it is etc.). I think rushing it would be worse than taking it slowly