Help! Figure 8 puffer pacing and not eating

[piffpuffer]

Thank you, my puff is so happy and i could watch him explore for hours!! He must be too excited about the upgrade from quarantine to even glass surf for more than a couple seconds haha hes so cute!!

NT Labs is a UK brand I think, LFS recommended it, that should've been the first sign of trouble lol, LFS doesn't have the best conditions, whole reason why I wanted my puff out of there asap

How many MTS did you have to start to have soo many of them? I'll keep a close eye on this, I'm still on the fence about them

Also, my puff got scared when I was putting a cover on the glass lid for the night (lid only covers 3/4 of the tank surface), he jumped up and hit his head on the glass lid twice, two audible thunk sounds. He's swimming fine after and continued his exploration of this tank so he should be fine right...? Have there been any cases of puffs getting injured from hitting their heads? a quick google tells me other types of fish have died from it!! i might just lower the water level a bit more so he doesnt hit his head

he's terrified of tissue paper, darts away like crazy and jumps when he sees it, the lid cover i use is also white so I think he's scared of the colour white. Maybe i should switch to a mesh lid, only issue with that is that the aerator is very lively and without the glass lid, the vapours get everywhere!

 

[Deadeye]

The best way to reduce jumping is with dim lights and floating cover (like duckweed or hornwort). It makes them feel more comfortable less likely to get startled and jump as a result.
I wouldn’t be super worried about it hurting itself - I don’t think they have the speed or mass to do much damage the way an arowana or wolf fish could.

As for the mts, I think it’s largely a personal decision. If they’re covering every surface it’s a lot but snail eaters will keep the population decently low.

 

[phreeflow]

Thank you, my puff is so happy and i could watch him explore for hours!! He must be too excited about the upgrade from quarantine to even glass surf for more than a couple seconds haha hes so cute!!

NT Labs is a UK brand I think, LFS recommended it, that should've been the first sign of trouble lol, LFS doesn't have the best conditions, whole reason why I wanted my puff out of there asap

How many MTS did you have to start to have soo many of them? I'll keep a close eye on this, I'm still on the fence about them

Also, my puff got scared when I was putting a cover on the glass lid for the night (lid only covers 3/4 of the tank surface), he jumped up and hit his head on the glass lid twice, two audible thunk sounds. He's swimming fine after and continued his exploration of this tank so he should be fine right...? Have there been any cases of puffs getting injured from hitting their heads? a quick google tells me other types of fish have died from it!! i might just lower the water level a bit more so he doesnt hit his head

he's terrified of tissue paper, darts away like crazy and jumps when he sees it, the lid cover i use is also white so I think he's scared of the colour white. Maybe i should switch to a mesh lid, only issue with that is that the aerator is very lively and without the glass lid, the vapours get everywhere!

You don’t have to change the lid, it’ll get used to you and everything in the tank in due time. They are very personable and will soon follow you around. Have no clue how many MTS I started with. They came in on a batch of plants that I was careful to inspect and quarantine.

I had two types of MTS: large type that grew to about an inch and another type that only grew to 0.25”. The larger ones were fine and I’d keep them again but that tiny species bred like crazy. My congo puffers wouldn’t eat them

 

[piffpuffer]

Thank you both! Getting some amazon frogbit today since i can use them for my shrimp breeding tank too once that one is running. Turns out they can tolerate up to 1.0079 SG, so that's perfect.

 

[piffpuffer]

Hey so my puffer is still pooping out worms even after 2 rounds of deworming. He's super active and eating very well, shows no signs of the worms slowing him down. When he eats, his stomach also doesnt have the round bulge, it looks uneven, so hes still got worms. First round was a month ago, and completed the second out last week. Couple days later, I saw his poop hanging off a thin worm as he swam around. Been doing WCs often, sometimes when I siphon out his poop, I just give into a 15% WC.

I'm using Azoo Anti-Endoparasites treatment, it's sold everywhere in my region at LFSs. Contemplating switching over to another since it's just not working!

btw, hes loving the frogbit! i've got more floaties in QT right now.

 

[Deadeye]

Post some pictures of him pooping - sometimes poop can look weird but be totally normal.

 

[piffpuffer]

Haven't got a recent picture of it but I got one when he was in QT. A little hard to see but it looks the same, but with one poop instead of the three lol, hanging off him and attached to super thin almost transparent string i assume to be a worm.

 

[Deadeye]

Looks more like regular poop to me - sometimes it looks weird (and is highly diet dependent). Generally you want to look for a a white color.
As far as physical worms, typically you’ll see the work hanging out regardless of poop. This all depends on the species of parasite though.

 

[piffpuffer]

Wow okay, seeing a string come out of him really had me jumping to think it was worms! Very odd, perhaps I'll keep an eyeout on his diet now that you mention it, maybe it's from the frozen bloodworms. I don't feed that one too often but I did give him a piece recently. thanks for your help again!

 

[piffpuffer]

ahh i just had the biggest scare of my life. I was adding in new driftwood and plants for my puff during a WC and he jumped out of the tank!! His tank is on a table so thankfully the fall wasn't high, about 30cm the height of the tank. He flopped around a lot and it was tough to scoop him up, and he started inflating. i had a cup were i kept the plants to acclimatise them and i quickly swept him in, and thank god he deflated very quickly. I did read up before getting him how to burp a puffer and im so thankful i didnt have to, probably wouldve caused him even more stress. He's back in his tank and obviously stressed, glass surfing for a few minutes and swimming more frantically. I did give him a snail as an apology and he ate it with no problems, pauses his franticness to play with the bubbles too. I've turned off all the lights and dimmed the last one. He seems almost completely back to normal now and slowly exploring, but is there anything else i can do to make sure he really stays alright? I don't have any seachem stressguard.

He seems hardier than most, even from when I first got him, and he's been more calm during WCs. if I fiddle with something or suction in one side of the tank, he goes to the other and waits, before we switch. I think the java moss might've scared him, the current java mosses i have are tied to driftwood, this one is free floating.