Puffer Won't Eat

[chibi]

My dwarf puffer refuses to eat. He used to eat, but now he just ignores food. The other two puffers in the tank engorge themselves until they're little balloons, but he is terribly skinny. The water quality is okay. He looks fine, except for the fact he's super-thin! He barely touched the frozen mysis shrimp and wasn't interested in the live brine shrimp. What could be wrong?

Also, my plants seem to have these little, diamond-shape holes in the them. They're all the same size. Not all of my plants have them. The leaves look completely healthy with these little diamond holes in them. The puffers aren't eating them, are they? I could've sworn they are carnivorous...

 

[Tommo]

The holes could be where the puffers have torn off small snails.

Have you always fed them the same food or were you feeding, say, bloodworm before, as the puffers could get attached to the previous food and want more of it.

The others could be faster than him or bullying him out of his food. If this is the case seperate him and feed him alone.

another possibility is an overgrown beak hindering his feeding, do you feed snails often?

hope this has been of some help

 

[jayjay]

Internal parasites could be a possibility.

What are you trying to feed?

 

[iSnail]

Have you noticed any bullying amongst them? Since you keep them in such a small tank, it's easy for the weakest DP to feel too threatened to feed. Try to isolate it if you have another cycled tank to put it into and see if it improves.

 

[DarkEntity]

My dwarf puffer refuses to eat. He used to eat, but now he just ignores food. The other two puffers in the tank engorge themselves until they're little balloons, but he is terribly skinny. The water quality is okay. He looks fine, except for the fact he's super-thin! He barely touched the frozen mysis shrimp and wasn't interested in the live brine shrimp. What could be wrong?

Also, my plants seem to have these little, diamond-shape holes in the them. They're all the same size. Not all of my plants have them. The leaves look completely healthy with these little diamond holes in them. The puffers aren't eating them, are they? I could've sworn they are carnivorous...

Is the stomach sunk inwards?

If so as JayJay mentioned it will be an internal parasite. To treat this soak the food in the meds then feed to the Puffer, this will put the meds direct to the area required.

 

[iSnail]

........or if it's not eating at all, try Flubenol with which you can treat the whole tank.

 

[Fella]

try live food, live bloodworm, snails etc. If that doesn't work, take some frozen bloodworm, and add some garlic to the mix, not so that the fish eats a whole clove, just so that it works as an attractant. It really works.

 

[pandacichlid]

try live food, live bloodworm, snails etc. If that doesn't work, take some frozen bloodworm, and add some garlic to the mix, not so that the fish eats a whole clove, just so that it works as an attractant. It really works.

good point, cus I've read somewhere that they sometimes won't accept frozen foods just live