Greetings from San Francisco! I've been enjoying the freshwater aquarium hobby for over 10 years now and still learning. This is my first post to this site. I have a dwarf puffer named Waldo in a heavily planted 17 gallon community tank with 4 neons, 2 female swordtails, 2 female guppies, and a bushy nose. The tank has been thriving for over 6 months now and he's been happily and peacefully living there for 3 months. I feed him and his tankmates frozen bloodworms every 3 or 4 days, on occasion white mosquito larvae, and supplement his diet with small snails that I transfer over from my guppy tank. He happily gobbles up the food everytime I feed him and even takes food out of my hand. His behavior seems normal for a dwarf puffer. He explores the nooks and crannies between the plants and wood and comes up to the glass whenever he sees me. My only concern about him is that he looks so skinny. His tummy gets round after he eats but most of the time it looks kinda concave and scrawny. Is he getting enough to eat or does he have parasites? I notice he's a voracious eater but I've heard you shouldn't feed them bloodworms every day. Any help is appreciated.
Why is my dwarf puffer so skinny?
- Thread starter chowfun1976
- Start date
Dwarf puffers are little pigs. I've had them a couple of different times over the years, and every single time, they eat me clean out of snails. I literally can't keep pond snail colonies going in their tanks, because they eat them faster than the snails can reproduce. The most recent time I had them, I ended up having to keep a 2.5g snail farm tank.
Your situation is a little different, though. I've never kept puffers in community tanks. I've always kept them singly, or if they're in a big enough tank, one male with two or three females. The only other fish I've ever kept with them are otos. I've also never fed them on a schedule. I always just grow (or try to grow, anyway) a snail colony in their tank, and they feed themselves. In my experience, puffers are a little bit like otos in their feeding habits. They feed constantly, and their tummies should never lose that rounded look. The only difference is that puffers eat snails and otos eat algae.
Your situation is a little different, though. I've never kept puffers in community tanks. I've always kept them singly, or if they're in a big enough tank, one male with two or three females. The only other fish I've ever kept with them are otos. I've also never fed them on a schedule. I always just grow (or try to grow, anyway) a snail colony in their tank, and they feed themselves. In my experience, puffers are a little bit like otos in their feeding habits. They feed constantly, and their tummies should never lose that rounded look. The only difference is that puffers eat snails and otos eat algae.
I used to feed mine only once a day, but one of them became just like what you described. almost anorexic-skinny. Started to feed them twice a day and he became healthy again. Bloodworms 2 times a day, it is the only thing mine eat apart from snails. What other food (snails excluded) do you see yours eat?
Aislinn is right, their tummies should never lose that rounded look. And the way to do it is to fill it up with food. I dump a dozen small baby ramshorn snails in their 10 gal every week or so, and I never see a single snail around. And I dump the snails at night so they have a fighting chance to go hide somewhere. Not a single snail ever seen...
Aislinn is right, their tummies should never lose that rounded look. And the way to do it is to fill it up with food. I dump a dozen small baby ramshorn snails in their 10 gal every week or so, and I never see a single snail around. And I dump the snails at night so they have a fighting chance to go hide somewhere. Not a single snail ever seen...
Mine tends to get a concave belly sometimes despite eating bws and snails so I fed him twice a day, and it did help. Another point however, many DPs have intestinal problems due to inbreeding, I lost one shortly after I got him from a petstore labeled baby puffer. I believe he was either unfed to the point of starvation or indeed had this disorder.
is this a requirement specific to DP's, or for fish in general? fish DON'T need to be fed every single day, thats for sure. feeding every couple or few days shouldnt have that big of an effect on the fish's body mass.
there is a remote possibility that parasites are involved.. do you EVER see him defecating? if so, what does it look like?
I just lost a blue ram to hexamita... most likely not the case here but it really caused a concave belly on my ram even with plenty of eating.
DP's with big heads and skinny bodies don't last for long IME. They can eat and eat and eat but if there is an internal issue they aren't getting enough food. Perhaps it is just a parasite and can be cured. For that iw oudl try soaking the frozen food in a crushed garlic/water solution for a bit then feeding. If it is a total loss of good bacteria (which can seem to happen easily to them) then there isn't much you can do.
