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Porcupine puff // eating

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Exarkun1178

Hi. Wanted to get your thoughts.

I've had this guy for ~4 months. In this time I've not seen him eat.

But he's still alive

I'd be less concerned if I thought he was move social / active in the tank but his behavior has him on one end of the tank facing the same way swimming against the glass up and down.

That's all he does, all day long.

He does take his nose off the glass , doesn't eat, doesn't travel (that I see)

Is this fish nocturnal?

Maybe he's eating the snails and crabs, except I don't have many. And I'm not finding torn up crushed shells either.

I have a video of it, but can't seem to upload it.



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Exarkun1178

I did change up the food Monday. Picked up some frozen chunky food from the ACC.

But he doesn't eat that either. At least not so far. The rabbit fish gets to the chunks pretty quick.

I tried pouring the chunks in his corner. But he let them float by [emoji55]


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RiverSwami

RiverSwami

I don't know if this applies to your fish, but I would assume it to be similar...
I have Figure Eight Puffers (brackish water). Puffers have teeth that constantly need to be worn down by crunching on hard foods like snails. If they don't get enough, their teeth can grow to the point of obstructing food from entering the mouth and they can starve to death. One of the signs is the fish looking skinnier over time.

You can check the length of the teeth by looking into the mouth. If all you see is a whitish solid body that is blocking you from seeing past it, the teeth need to be trimmed. This can be done with a pair of nail/toe/dog clippers, depending on the size of the fish.

I feed my puffers (still) frozen krill (they are still hard), snails and (still) frozen mussels in the shell (from Shoprite). It gives the fish something hard to gnaw on. I don't want to have to trim teeth. I supplement with frozen brine shrimp and frozen mysis. They have never shown any interest in dry flakes or pellets of any kind. They were hand fed since infancy, but eat freely now. They may nip at the fins of other fish. So, look for signs of that in your tank.

I suggest feeding your fish in an isolation container inside your tank for a while until you get a handle on the situation to make sure it's getting enough to eat.

Hope this helps. [emoji245]

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Exarkun1178

Been doing more research on this puffer

I was sold a bill of goods! I knew this guy would eat crabs and snails, but was told it would mostly eat flake or pellets. And some chunky free meat if I had it

Turns out this guy , #1 is gonna get big big. And #2 he's considered a predator fish. He eats other live fish!

No I Der I don't see this guy eat. And damn happy he hasn't gone after my other fish


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Exarkun1178

I wanted to add an update.

The puffers behavior changed over last two weeks.

He started swimming around. Not just in that one corner. And happily, for the first time this past Wednesday I witnessed it eat a chunk of meat.

Since then he's been very active and now swims actively throughout the whole tank

[emoji51]


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