The Puffer Forum

Can someone explain to me why, when I have provided two lovely, cozy caves for Linus, and there are numerous cavey-type places in the driftwood for him to snuggle up and sleep, he insists on sleeping under the powerhead? He curls up on the gravel every night under there, in the back corner of the tank. Dunno what I'm going to do when he's too big to fit back there.

I would guess the thing vibrates a little as it pumps, and he likes it, it's like napping in one of those massage cusions for your chair. One of my GF's ADFs would intentionally suck itself to the filter intake because she liked how it felt. After a different frog stuck her leg up into it on accident we replaced the internal with a HOB filter and she couldn't do it anymore, but she adapted.

That or it puts out a little extra heat from the motor?

I had a cave in my fahaka tank, but took it out because it took up too much room and he didn't use it. He never went in there once. Although he usually sleeps under a driftwood piece I have.

He hangs out in the caves sometimes during the day, swimming through and pausing for a short while, but won't sleep in them at night. I'm not sure about the heat or the motor, since there's at least 4 inches between the gravel and the bottom of the powerhead, and its not real cavey. At least not to me. But if he's happy there, I don't care really. Just find it interesting that most of my puffers aren't the least bit interested in actual cave structures. The baileyis and palembang prefer hanging out under plants or, in Lil's case, inside the tube of her artificial driftwood. None of the others use caves that I've provided.

I don't think puffers trust caves with only one obvious exit... in nature, those generally read as "trap" to creatures.

Oh no, none of mine are enclosed. All have front and back openings, usually made with two rocks and a piece of slate on top or something similar. The turgidus is the only one that seems to use one regularly.