The Puffer Forum

About 2 minutes after his eaten his stomach goes from...well what they look like when theyve eaten(puffer owners know what im talking about) to what it does before hes eaten if you know what i mean. Normally it takes much longer for it to shrink back down. It might be cause hes not full enough(as im only giving him 1/4 of a frozen cube) or he mihg thave caught something from his tank mate that had cloudy eye like IP...?
Im not sure though,it might be that hes getting the right amount of food whereas before i was givng him plenty of food (enough that theyd consume in 5 mins). Does this sound normal? Hes about 1.5"-2"

Thanks

Probably internal parasites.

Ok,but his belly doesnt look sunken,its rounded still...

What kind of food are you feeding?
I find that when we feed our puffs food that they have to "suck" in, like blood worms or brine shrimp for example, they tend to get huuuuge tummies that shrink down really quickly, usually in a matter of minutes. I've attributed it to them accidentally puffing a little by ingesting so much water with the food, since they never do this with bigger foods they have to "chomp" like whole uncooked shrimp, or snails.

I feed live/frozen: bloodworm,brine shrimp,tubifex, cockle and sometimes beefheart;that sorta stuff. Feed them snails and river shrimp too.
Yeah that may be it....hopefully

Are you defrosting it 1st? Maybe it's full of the ice/juice it's packed it & then it defrosts. You should always defrost frozen foods under water, in a brine shrimp net.

No i dont defrost the food first...
I got soem live foods today,fed some live breine shrimp and hes stomach stayed 'fatter' for a good while

Brine shrimp has almost no nutritional value and shouldn't be used as a staple. Think of them as potato chips for fish - good as an occasional snack but not as a main food.

Ive also heard that puffers dont need the high in fat beef heart, my DP along with my girlfriends 2 GSP's seem to love krill(freeze dried) the most, along with bloodworms(freeze dried and frozen), though i dont soak my frozen bloodworms, its kinda hard to soak 3-5 frozen bloodworms.

I missed that. I definitely recommend against feeding beef heart or any other beef product to puffers. Its not a part of their natural diet and isn't good for them.

Do not feed foods while still frozen. Not good for their stomach & the juices they are packed in raise your nitrates. Rinse it off.