Well, I got the Stars and Stripes puffer yesterday, and the first few hours were quite entertaining (and a little disturbing) to say the least.
We slowly acclimated him to our salinity, and he did fine the whole time. After he was settled in at our salinity we put him in the tank, and he immediately went to the bottom, tail curled, with that typical "I'm a puffer and I'm upset/stressed/nervous" look on his face. I wasn't worried, I was expecting this. So while he's sitting there pouting, the GSP comes up and says hi, no aggression, just a friendly nod and the GSP moved on. I wasn't expecting aggression from the start anyway, at least was hoping there wouldn't be any, and there wasn't. So far so good. Next up were the monos. One of the reasons I like them is because they're like a gang. They all swam up together, kinda circled him, and moved on like they approved, but didn't really care.
After a while I decided to try out a little food. I fed some clam on the half shell, squid, and plankton. The new puffer loved all of it, however, he also seemed to think the GSP was now food! For a couple minutes, it looked like as soon as he caught the GSP he was gonna eat him. I was standing there with the net, almost at the point where I was going to separate them, when the mood seemed to change a little bit, and it seemed like maybe TJ (the new puffer) was just being aggressive while feeding, maybe because of the new tank, not sure. After another 20 minutes or so, he and the GSP were getting along fine, swimming around each other, not really paying each other any attention at all.
However, the excitement wasn't over. The monos decided they didn't like TJ, and started really picking on him. This went on the rest of the night as far as I can tell. This morning, everyone seems to be doing fine. When I turned on the light, TJ was kinda standing up for himself against the monos. I just got a call from the wife, who said TJ is curled up on the sand, but his color looks good, and the monos, for now, are leaving him alone.
So there ya have it, the first 12 hours of TJ in his new home. I'm optimistic, and am prepared to remove the GSP at the first sign of problems. I expect I'll know how it's going to work out the next time I feed, since that seemed to cause problems last time. I'm not prepared to remove the monos though, and didn't expect them to pick on TJ, so I'm not sure what to expect moving forward with that combination. I guess we'll just wait and see...
We slowly acclimated him to our salinity, and he did fine the whole time. After he was settled in at our salinity we put him in the tank, and he immediately went to the bottom, tail curled, with that typical "I'm a puffer and I'm upset/stressed/nervous" look on his face. I wasn't worried, I was expecting this. So while he's sitting there pouting, the GSP comes up and says hi, no aggression, just a friendly nod and the GSP moved on. I wasn't expecting aggression from the start anyway, at least was hoping there wouldn't be any, and there wasn't. So far so good. Next up were the monos. One of the reasons I like them is because they're like a gang. They all swam up together, kinda circled him, and moved on like they approved, but didn't really care.
After a while I decided to try out a little food. I fed some clam on the half shell, squid, and plankton. The new puffer loved all of it, however, he also seemed to think the GSP was now food! For a couple minutes, it looked like as soon as he caught the GSP he was gonna eat him. I was standing there with the net, almost at the point where I was going to separate them, when the mood seemed to change a little bit, and it seemed like maybe TJ (the new puffer) was just being aggressive while feeding, maybe because of the new tank, not sure. After another 20 minutes or so, he and the GSP were getting along fine, swimming around each other, not really paying each other any attention at all.
However, the excitement wasn't over. The monos decided they didn't like TJ, and started really picking on him. This went on the rest of the night as far as I can tell. This morning, everyone seems to be doing fine. When I turned on the light, TJ was kinda standing up for himself against the monos. I just got a call from the wife, who said TJ is curled up on the sand, but his color looks good, and the monos, for now, are leaving him alone.
So there ya have it, the first 12 hours of TJ in his new home. I'm optimistic, and am prepared to remove the GSP at the first sign of problems. I expect I'll know how it's going to work out the next time I feed, since that seemed to cause problems last time. I'm not prepared to remove the monos though, and didn't expect them to pick on TJ, so I'm not sure what to expect moving forward with that combination. I guess we'll just wait and see...
I hope all ends up well and everyone gets on in your tank so no one has to go to isolation
