Peculiar Behaviour >> Spotted Puffer

[Megashira]

I recently fed my spotted puffer a crayfish to start chipping away at his teeth; as they are getting very large, large enough that it afflicts his eating habits.. Anyways after a few hours of him muching away I have been noticing that he now is ramming his teeth against the glass in an attempt to chip them.. Strange isn't? Should I be worried or is it normal behaviour?

 

[mantis147]

My saltwater puffers used to eat snails to keep their teeth down. Never seen one hitting the glass

 

[Rocker]

Its normal.

 

[nmonks]

I heard a story once about a guy feeding nuts to a pacu. Pacus are giant characins, and they eat nuts in the wild, among other things. Anyway, the pacu handled a series of different nuts fine, and then the guy tried a big brazil nut. Pacu couldn't open it, so did what your puffer did, grabbed hold of the nut and lunged straight at the wall of the tank. Pacus are about a meter long, and when one is swimming towards a pane of glass at full speed armed with a solid brazil nut... let's say the results were explosive!

Cheers,

Neale

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

My puffer (GSP) does that all the time, he seems to be nipping the glass. I assume he thinks he sees another GSP in there bacause of the reflection. So indeed, it's normal.

 

[andywg]

Do fish actually see a reflection when looking at the glass? We look in and see through the glass, so surely they see out, how else would some react to me by running away, and others react by runnign ot the top for food.

If they are running at angles then I can see some reflection happening, but if i look in one end of the tank, I see out the other, implying that any reflection is minimal.

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

probably is an angle thing, but I just ran downstairs to check, and I still see a bit of a reflection when I look straight into the tank. I'm not saying that that's certainly why he nips at the glass, that's just my personal interpretation of the behavior. Puffer will sneak up slowly and then go crazy on the glass for a few seconds, then he backs off and goes on with his regular business. quite funny actually, puffers are great because of the unique personalities they all seem to have.