Dwarf puffer not eating!

[mome rath]

Tank/water: 78 deg F, pH about 7.4, live plants, silicon sand substrate, nitrogen compounds all within acceptable range.

One of my 3 dwarf puffers is not eating and looking dangerously thin. The other two eat voraciously every time they are fed (frozen bloodworms is what I've been offering). He will go up and investigate a worm or two, but then show apathy to it and swim back toward the cover of the plants. He doesn't seem to be bullied any more than you would expect with a tank full of this kind of fish.

Any ideas? :help:

 

[PurpleSmurf]

Try soaking the bloodworms in garlic. Garlic tend to make picky fish eat and if he's not eating because of internal parasites garlic will help cure them.

Also try and give them more food variety.

 

[zave2340]

try frozen plakton, works great with the figqure 8 i had here for a bit. or perhaps come ghost shrimp

 

[RTR]

The fish may have intestinal parasites, common in dwarf puffers.

Try live blackworms in case that fish just does not like thawed bloodworm.

Define "within acceptable range" for nitrogen compounds?

 

[Biznatch]

Dwarf puffers are bred in captivity so I doubt they have internal parasites. That's mainly common in wild caught fish. Are the puffers new? If so sometimes it takes a few days or long before they will eat. Ask the petstore you got it from what they fed him and try that. Mine only eat blood worms and the new one I got 2 days ago is just now starting to eat.

 

[TKOS]

Sorry to say but if they are really big headed with a super thin body it may be too late. But I found my DP's only ate live food and would swim up to anything else and back away. Getting some small snails (pond, rams horn) or some live blood worms etc... may do the trick in getting it to eat.

 

[RTR]

Dwarf puffers are captive bred, but a very significant percentage of them have intestinal parasites. Most LFS stocking DPs don't know what or how to feed them.

 

[TKOS]

The walmart I found mine at said they ate flake food and had been feeding them that. No wonder mine were so sick.

 

[mome rath]

OK, thanks for the suggestions. He is eating live mosquito larvae. Apparently, if it doesn't wiggle, he doesn't want it. Disaster averted.. maybe.

:clap:

 

[TKOS]

Keep your eye on him, get some snails breeding in a separate tank and hope that he didn't progress too far and got too skinny. Good luck.