porcupine puffer

[jimdogs]

Hello,
I have a saltwater 75gal setup. All levels in tank are good but the nitrates are a little bit high, i'm working on this now. My porcupine pufferfish has been in my tank for 6 months and has been the healthiest and biggest eater in the tank. For about 5 days now he is not eating hardly anything at all. He looks healthy, his color is good and he doesn't appear to have ick. I have tried changing his food from frozen krill to silverfish to squid and freeze-dried plankton. All the food he ate in the past. When he does eat some plankton he looks like his throat hurts, kind of like you swallowing with a soar throat. He used to attack his food now he slowly looks and very tentatively takes small bites. Any suggestions?
Thanks Jim

 

[beth]

Have you been feeding this fish regularly with hard shelled foods? If puffers are not fed "shelled" foods, their teeth start to grow too long. If this happens then they will have a hard time eating, stop eating altogether and eventually parish.
I'm going to COPY this thread over to our Aggressive Forum so that members who keep aggressive fish may have some more insights for you on this particualar fish. This thread will remain open here.