Dwarf Puffer A Common Theme

This is the first time keeping dwarf puffers. I have read that many people have faced problem with puffers not eating and eventually passing away. I am also facing a similar situation. However, in my at least one puffer has been in the tank for more than 20days. So not too sure, whether they are eating or not.

I had got my first dwarf puffer 20 days ago on 13th November 2017. And I made a rookie mistake. I put it in my 20G tank with Angel fish and GBRs for 2 days before moving it to a cycled 3G tank, where it stayed for two weeks and then I moved it to a 7G tank along with one more dwarf puffer(which I got on the same day) on 26th November.

Both my dwarf puffers are active. The one I got first is slightly smaller in size to the new one.

I know it is no-no but because of some special circumstances, I also had to keep 3 tetras in this 7G tank with my pea puffers. Tetras are there only temporary and they have been there for 2 weeks now. Nothing happened to tetras and they pretty much ignore each other.

Now here are the problems

1. Until now I have not seen my puffers eating or pooping. It is highly unlikely that my first puffer has been surviving without eating anything for last 3 weeks right? And I do not see any difference in their body sizes. Sometimes I can see one chasing another. But all are short chase and lasts only few seconds. And sometimes I can see both of them gliding/drifting and hovering body to body in various locations in the tank. And sometimes I see one of them rapid swimming top to bottom for few turns on one of the sides of the tank(no particular side). Last week one day I put frozen, thawed blood worms, I still did not see them take a bite, but next day whatever small pieces left were gone/
Another day before that, I tried live tubifex, again saw tetra eating, never seen puffers eat. Anyway my puffers are still very active. I have ample ramshorn snails in the tank. But I have not seen any empty shells or dead/partially eaten snails either. I also put small amount of freeze dried blood worms once in a while. Not sure they have been eating when I was not around. My tank parameters are Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate a color between 10 and 20, PH 7.4.


2. I did not know about the massive issue with internal parasites in dwarf puffers. The fish came from a LFS store which I know very well. But not sure about the sources of their dwarf puffers. As I have never seen these fishes eat, I am worried could it be because of internal parasites? If so, would I have introduced them to my 20G tank also already? I checked with the LFS that I bought my puffers from, they said, all the fishes imported here are quarantined before coming to their shop. Not sure how true is that as I did not find any quarantine requirement in the govt website.

3. I have seen posts to look for sunken belly to diagnose IP. But I do not even know what is considered as sunken. I also used my fish net across my 3 tanks, which I used to handle the these DPs. Now I am really worried that, I would have passed something to other fishes in the other two tanks. What to look out for? If I introduced IPs to my angel fish-GBR tank, how long before I see fish sick?

Here are some pictures and a video of my puffers. Sorry for the bad pictures because they hardly stay still when I go with the phone to take a picture. They do a peek-a-boo with me. Moving away from direct eye-contact. Not sure it is normal or it is because they have only been few weeks with me.

 

Nope! No sunken bellies there

Do you have snails in the tank? They love escargot!

 

Nope! No sunken bellies there

Do you have snails in the tank? They love escargot!

I have at least 20 ramshorns in different sizes in that 7G. I think many snail babies are also coming out.. But I did not see any shells though... Today also I checked, and they both swim very active and curious.

 

I do not have Dwarf Puffers, but I wanted to say that I have 3 Black KuhlI Loaches and I have very rarely seen them eat, as a matter of fact, I rarely see them out, maybe one at a time in rare occasions. I have been worried about them eating enough or at all. Last Sunday I cleaned the tank and I saw the 3 of them being very active. I assume they are somehow eating enough, because otherwise, after over 5 months in the tank they would have been dead already.
Point is, if they look happy and healthy, they must be eating something, I guess.

 

Hopefully they are eating
This is the bigger one, now lounging on a small filter I kept for surface disturbance.






And this is the small one who was Swimming with tetras when I went to take picture. It’s very shy and as soon as it seems me goes to back of the tank.

 

Cool little fish.
I have been considering getting one, but I have been wanting a RCS tank for the longest time, so I am going with that for now. When time comes for a 3rd tank, I will get a dwarf puffer.

 

I think they are indeed eating. Must have been eating the freeze dried worms I used to give when I was not looking.

Anyway found 2 whitened snail shells today. As I stopped giving the freeze dried worms to the tetras since last 3days(before that I used to give every alternate days).

Here is the picture of the shells and both the puffers are also in the frame.

 

HI RonJ!
Yes, those dwarf puffers are def. eating and very cute When their stomachs are sunken, they're *really* sunken!

One reason why you might not have ever seen them poop is that:
1) I've heard that freeze dried (NOT frozen) bloodworms can cause constipation/ blockages in some fish. Not 100% sure about puffers but I know it's an issue with betta fish in particular.
2) Freeze dried bloodworms typically have nutritionally less value than frozen blood worms. Companies that make frozen bloodworms often will have a label that says "gut loaded" on it, which means that the blood worms were well fed and that nutrition is then passed on to your puffers. I really like HikarI brand bloodworms (Bio-Pure Frozen Blood Worms - Hikari) In general I'd advise any fish owner, but especially puffer owners to try to feed their fish frozen bloodworms over freeze dried.

To perhaps give you peace of mind - one thing that I think it pretty cool about puffers, is that they are very very friendly once they associate you with food and will very readily eat directly from you once conditioned to do so.

If you have the time/ patience, you can actually train them to eat directly from you/ tweezers. I have some extra long, aquascaping tweezers that I use to feed my puffers where I'll thaw my frozen bloodworms in a dish then grab a clump of 2-3 ish and wiggle them around in the puffer tank to mimic the movement of a live animal. It might take a while for them to get used to the tweezers/ not think that they're a terrifying alien object, but I personally really love feeding my puffers this way and it also allows me to be very certain that they are eating. If anything, it's almost too easy to overfeed them because they go after the bloodworms with a lot of zeal!

Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions or want more info - I can talk about puffers forever

Jamie

 

They are definitely eating! Fat little piggies <3

I would personally deworm all of my tanks with Prazipro if there has been cross contamination with the puffers before they were dewormed. Hopefully, if they have some kind of bug, it's one that prazipro is effective against.

That being said, don't panic too much.

 

Thanks a lot people. Yes today marks 1month since my first puffer.

Yes indeed they do come to front of the tank more often. No signs of aggression against each other or tetras now. So anyway I decided to leave the tetras there to avoid any cross contamination.

Prazipro, I couldn’t find until now here in Singapore.

So until now they have not been dewormed. But as per our AVA guidelines they might have been dewormed when arrived in Singapore along with QT.

Anyway I will see if I can find something to deworm locally and ask you guys for advice. Thanks a lot.


Oh as for hand feeding it’s my male blood parrot that lets me hand feed. Not only that he actually comes and lets me hand fee, he does a rub-around like cats whenever I put a finger in. But I make sure I only put my fingers in after thoroughly washing first and then using hot water to dip. I have a bit of OCD when it comes to fear of passing germs both ways. Oh yeah I do make sure no soap residue leaches into tanks.