The Puffer Forum

I have a little guy about 5 inches long in a 125 with a dogface puff and a huge sebea clownfish. They all get along great. My porcupine does this silly thing though, if anyone comes up to the tank all calm and normal, even mommy with a shirt that has stripes on it especially horizontal he will take off like a speeding bullet either to the top of the water or on the bottom in the sand and hold his breath and not move. I have to do the tap tap on the treat can of krill and wave my fingers around for him to realize that I'm not going to eat him or something. Then he will come over but very skittish, not till I go change my shirt will he act like his normal puppy dog self. He also spits water out of his tank at me, along with my Niger -trigger,raccoon butterfly, that I have in another tank. Just wanted to see if anyone else has seen their puffer freak out like that on striped shirts.

I have heard of many puffers that have a response like this, but it's usually to red shirts, or orange ones, not stripes... are they red stripes?

no it's not a specific color my mom had on a blue and white striped shirt on one day she had to put on a jacket so that she could come up to the tank to see him. I could go up and he was fine as soon as she tool one step to the tank zooooom off he would go. lol then yesterday I had a pink and silver shirt on and he did the same thing. maybe something to do with the tank glass and the water making the stripes look like they are moving? I don't know, but it don't seem to be color specific. I try not to wear them around him but I forgot yesterday when I went to feed them.

None of mine actually care at all... I work at target, so they are really, really used to red, thats for sure.

My GSP has the same reaction to pink and red. I would very much recommend not wearing anything that causes him to do it. It may look funny but they can seriously damage themselves when they are spazzing around like that.

Oh I know not to freak him out just to see him do it. after the first time which was months ago, I just happened to be wearing a striped shirt came straight home to feed them before I had changed out of my work clothes for the day. I felt bad for him, so he got some extra food. I'm such a sap. lol

I bought a bright blue body bath sponge thing yesterday and was taking it out of the packet infront of the tank. Jokingly I said to my puffer "Do you want a bath?" and held up the sponge, he FREAKED out! He was like doing the almost puff thing and hiding behind rocks.

I guess he doesnt like baths... or the colour blue..

My girl likes red. Her favorite place to sleep when I first got her was a red plastic ludwigia plant, so I got her some more red plants and she likes to hide and cruise through them.

It appears that Linus doesn't view leopard print with favor.

well I caught my pork puff chasing/ giving the uh you look pretty tasty, after my sebea clown's tail this morning doing my routine check/good morining to everyone. So I had to unthaw some food for him and feed him breakfast too. Litte brat I don't see how he could be so hungry i feed him till he has a lumpy tummy. Every other day with all kinds of stuff, shrimp,squid,bloodworms, crab,krill mix. Plus nori seaweed sheets.

They don't just chase and eat when they are hungry though, which is why we usually recommend puffers in species-only tanks. They tend to take bites out of roommates even when they are full.

I know but he has been so good ever since I got him. Maybe now that he has grown up a bit he thinks the is the boss of the tank he is the only really aggressive fish in there 1 of my dogface puffs that I have in there is really laid back till there is food involved.

Just wondering if you're planning on getting a bigger tank for these guys, and how big they are now? ...and obviously if you have any pictures

Mine hate it when I still have my towel on my head, like he doesn't recognize me. He hides.