Pygmy Puffers wont eat

[CraZ4fiSHieS]

im worried about my pygmy puffers. I had one before that would eat nothing but my betta's tails, then it died in two weeks. My boyfriend just bought 2 more and is keeping them in a small fish bowl. He was told they were brackish and he had to slowly adapt them to freshwater, so thats what hes doing. He changes 1/2 the water nightly, addin less salt each time. I was wondering if this is necesary, or are we just slowly killing them in there? Cause they wont eat anything. Its been 4 days now and they just swim around and non of the food gets touched. What can I do? I've tried cut up wax worms, blood worms, flakes, pellets, etc... Also, if they can be put into the big tank, (which I think they should! ) the tank mates would be gourami's, rubber eels, rainbow b's and some other kinda bigger fish. is this ok? ALSO Puffers are breathing rapidly, thats bad I kno. What can I do PLEASE!

 

[Calusa]

umm

it's bad to force animals that are brackish to become fresh. Keep the puffers what they're naturally inclined to. If they're natually brackish, it's really not all that hard to offer them a brackish habitiat. If you don't, then you can watch them wither up and die... it's pretty much just that simple.

I would bet that the fact that you're putting them through an envrionment change could really by why they're not eating. I just got a Fig-8 that's doing fine, eating bloodworms for it's first meal here. You can try offering those.

Make sure that you ease them back into their proper salinity. Don't just plop them back into it. How big is their current tank? The tank you'd like to offer them?

 

[CraZ4fiSHieS]

Actually, they are doing fine now. We also just recently got 2 figure 8s that we successfully adapted to fresh water and they are doing great. The pygmies are in their own tank again after a run in my 10 gal. They were removed for eating my bettas fins! But they are on their own again now in a 2 gal. FRESHWATER tank and doing great. It took them a few days to eat once transfered to this one, but they are fine now and even scoping out their own territory in the tank. Thanks for the advice. I'll write again if I have any other problems in the future. B)

 

[CFC]

You really shouldn't keep brackish fish in freshwater as Calusa has said it will be the death of them eventually,if you cant keep them in the proper conditions you really should take them back to the store where they can be bought by someone who can.

 

[Dave]

I've Had No 8 Puffers for a while now and when I bought them they were in freshwater. And thats what there in now. There doing great. There eating BloodWorm, Snails and Love Mussels. As I said Ive had them a while now maybe 3 months or more and they seem ok. So if this gives them a slow death how slow is slow? I certainly don't see signs of them withering up and dying.

Could it be that if they are bred in fresh water then they'll be ok?

 

[CFC]

Although im by no means an expert on the subject IME brackish fish that are forced into freshwater whether by the keeper or the breeder usually lead sad unhealthy lives and die young.A lot of the fish shops near me sell brackish fish in freshwater and i am forever seeing dead puffers,archerfish,scats,monos,shark cats and anableps in their tanks,there are some species of freshwater puffer and if puffers are what people want but they dont want to do the salt then they should stick to these.

 

[Dave]

mmm, quite interesting and potentially worrying. So is it possible to turn a freshwater tank into a brackish tank that has 'freshwater fish' in. i.e. Angels, Pims etc. Reason being I was looking at Monos (in fresh water) and thought they would be ok in my tank?

 

[gadazobe]

According to my fishy bible, there are three types of puffers, those that live in brackish water, those that live in fresh water, and there are also some that live in saltwater. IMO brackish should be kept in brackish, fresh in fresh and salt in salt. Just make sure that you get the freshwater ones (tetraodon palembangenis) if you want to keep them in your tank.