Porcupine Puffer Help

[sprieto]

I have a concern for my new porcupine puffer fish I recently received.
After acclamation, and for the first day, the puffer fish seemed happy, floating and swimming near the top of the water, looking very active and mobile.
But he seemed not to want to eat any of the dry or cubed food products.
After the second day, I got him some guppies and white shrimp.
He devoured the shrimp like there was no tomorrow.
In fact, I worry he over ate since he is just a baby (about 2 1/2 inches) and he ate at least 9 shrimps.
His back got plotted (a bump on it) and I swear I saw him throw up once.
He has been laying on the bottom of the tank since, breathing very slowly, and looking lethargic.
After a day, the bump as gone down a little, and I think I also saw him spit out a rock (the day after he ate).
He is still laying on the bottom and moving around very little.
Did he just over eat and maybe he will get better?
Is there something seriously wrong with him?
How long until I try to feed him again, and with what?
Please help with any advise, I really don/t want to loose this fish.
Thank you,
SAP.

 

[kleener]

I feed mine frozen krill. he loves it. I actually thaw it out slightly in the tank and hold it for him and he feeds out of my hand. he gets 3 - 4 pieces a day. It took him about 2 weeks to socialize with tankmates, and 2 more to adapt to me. He started out hiding behind the overflow. now he's all over the place. also add a few inexpensive live crabs for him to nibble on.

 

[guineawhop]

this happened when ihad a pp but i did not over feed because i knew of their habits to. eventually he snapped out of it. try and get him over to krill and silversides. best way is to get him to eat from your hand, try holding the fish in your hands and then let a week or 2 pass and then try the krill and keep trying. once they get a taste for it they devour it.

 

[lion_crazz]

When I got my puffer, all he would eat when he was a baby was black worms but he eventually grew to love krill. Now, I feed him a diet of krill, mussels, and plankton mainly, with a couple of different things every few weeks. He was very finicky when he was little though. The blackworms did the trick for him. I even tried live brine shrimp when I got my puffer a year ago, and he didn't even touch that. But it was the live blackworms that did it for him and eventually made him grow to like other things.

 

[scubadoo]

Try some small snails too. This will help keep the teeth filed down. His teeth continue to grow due to the puffers natural diet in the wild. Their teeth grow naturally to compenste for the hard shelled diet. THey love to eat hard shelled foods. If you do not supplement a few times a week with some hard foods the teeth will eventually grow too large and the puffer will be unable to eat.