The Puffer Forum

Hello again people!
I have 1 f8 puffer in my tank... It's a 55L tank...He's on his own in there... there's pics and info on my other threads. If you're interested.
The thing is he keeps on "freaking out"! He'll suddenly start swimming around like a nut and jumping out of the water (you can hear the bang when he hits the lid) then he'll swim down in the same movement and collide with the gravel... He's absolutely mental! I don't know what the problem is... The nitrate and nitrites are zero.
Now he's just sitting in the corner...Until his next excursion in to the realm of madness... He's not mad all the time...Some of the time he just swims around and looks alright... He does do that up and down the glass thing... Ive modified the decor countless times to try and ease his tension..Make it more "interesting" for him... The thing is..He's eaten everything else in the tank...Maybe he's upset he's got nothing less to devour...Snails and frozen turkey heart seem a little passe for him..The little blighter! Although he does eat it... Maybe it's the sport he likes...

I would condsider either the salinity of the water or the possibility of external parasites like gill flukes and the like. Is the temperature stable?

Could there be anything visually outside the tank that is making him do this? When i've had fish freak out like that, it's generally been spooked by something visually or a sudden change in light.

My target does that sometimes if he gets scared. Try not to spook the little fella.

My GSP used to do that also. I kept thinking he must be hurting himself hitting the cover so hard.

I knew it was me scaring him 'cause he'd only do it when I was by the tank.

I found that once I planted the tank (with fake plants) and he had a place to hide he didn't do it.

Mary Anne

One of my ceylons do it to get my attention. More of a "feed meeeee!!!" thing than anything else. They do also try to jump out when they're scared too. Are you approaching the tank too quickly? Maybe try backing off when you see him doing that and see if it helps?

Shakespeare tries to swim up out of the water when his lights go out, but he does it in just one corner, and never gets more than his face out of the water.

Sorry for delay...Ive been away...Thanks for the answers! !!
We're considering making the tank brackish quite soon, with the idea that maybe he's not entirely happy because it's freshwater at the moment.
He definitely is very skittish in general... And the lights definitely make him go nutso when going on or off! But it's just the fact that he does it sometimes for seemingly no reason i can comprehend..Plus, added to that he also holds one Fin to his body sometimes... He started doing that when we had that minor outbreak of ich... Now the ich is gone and he continues to do it! Maybe he's going for the sympathy vote for food... My dog used to do that when he wanted something... He'd lift his paw up and look sad in remembrance of the time he hurt his left paw... as if to say "But...but...my paw hurts... And I'm hungry"

I think you have the answer right there, slowly get the salinity up, do not rush it though as the filter bacteria will not be able to adjust and you will crash the system