Help My Sa Puffer Won't Eat

[sarad]

Hi Everyone.
Thankyou for accepting me into you world.

I am a novice at South American Puffers but not to fish keeping.

My boy won't eat!!
Its only been 2 days ( the length of time I've had him) Is this normal??

I read up on them for weeks before buying him and Ive tried him with snails , blood worm and cockles but to no avail!!

Water is fine...no nitrites.

Heavily planted 70 litre tank.

Just don't understand.

He came from a tank with 10 in. Should I have bought more than one? He may be lonely.

He is investigating well and comes to the front of the glass when I go near.

Tried feeding with a syringe.to no avail.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Dont want him to suffer

 

[Matty P]

What size are his teeth, they grow very fast and may need trimmed??

 

[sarad]

What size are his teeth, they grow very fast and may need trimmed??

I dont know ithout getting hold of him. They arn't sticking out or anything like that.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

can you post a picture? also, do you know the "liters per hour" turnover of your filter?

it's really strange that he won't eat... mine always used to eat with gusto.

 

[wenchybev]

I keep 3 of these in a 99 litre tank (with other fish) all 3 of them seem to like hanging about together, i feed mine on frozen blood worm through a feeder that is stuck to the top of the tank, 2 of them will also eat mussels but one of them is a very fussy eater and holds out for the bloodworms (every other day)


Ive noticed that when i buy frozen bloodworm the colour and size of the worms vary from manufacturers, maybe try a different make or some fresh mussel?

Do you use salt in the water?

 

[Fella]

I keep 3 of these in a 99 litre tank (with other fish) all 3 of them seem to like hanging about together, i feed mine on frozen blood worm through a feeder that is stuck to the top of the tank, 2 of them will also eat mussels but one of them is a very fussy eater and holds out for the bloodworms (every other day)


Ive noticed that when i buy frozen bloodworm the colour and size of the worms vary from manufacturers, maybe try a different make or some fresh mussel?

Do you use salt in the water?

There's definitely no need whatsoever to add salt to the water!

Try something live like earthworms to get him to start to feed. Be careful not to overfeed though, no need to add too much waste to the tank for no return.

 

[Matty P]

Does using garlic work???

 

[DarkEntity]

They are a natural shoaling Puffer, and in the past ive had a Puffer that wouldnt eat and didnt for near 2 weeks. I eventually had to gently smack him in teh face with food before he realised dead stuff was edible aswell as live.

 

[blake0625]

Try asking the place you got he puffer what they were feeding him. A couple of the puffers I have had needed to be weened off the food the LFS were feeding them. For some reason a few around here use brine shrimp and it takes some getting used to other stuff (bloodworms, mussels, etc...).