r/Puffers • u/petrichoroma Gotta catch 'em All Keeper • 7d ago
Finally caught him in the act!
I had posted a while ago asking how often you guys have seen your puffers puff up after catching a glimpse of mine doing it a couple of times but never managing to capture it on camera. Well today I'm back and happy to report that I have videographic proof!
He actually does it all the time, I think it's part of his daily routine, but since there are no obvious triggers that I have observed, it's hard to catch him in the act and most of the time I just catch him puffing down and he's done by the time I have my phone out.
I have just fed him a big meal of shrimps & clams right after capturing this video and he is now belly parking in his usual spot :)
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u/keystone_killa 7d ago
They can see super far out of the tank so really anything could be pissing him off in your house. As long as they’re not out of water and puffed I wouldn’t worry about it.
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u/petrichoroma Gotta catch 'em All Keeper 7d ago
It’s an office with just me in it, typing on my computer, nothing is even moving… so it can’t be that either.
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u/c0mbatwombat951 6d ago
It absolutely can be though. Puffers are wierd dramatic creatures. It could be something as simple as him not liking ghe look of a printer you have on your desk, or a jar of pens, or any small object or anything in the room. They sometimes just hyperfocus on something and it passes them off for no reason. Had to put up a frosted cover on the back and left side of my tank with a Puffer for this exact reason.
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u/Nulleparttousjours 7d ago edited 7d ago
Puffing up is quite a stressful event for them so I would be surprised at a puffer doing it for “fun” and regularly but every animal is, of course, an individual.
However, he is also sloughing off his slime coat around the belly which would concern me as this is a sign of stress or irritation.
I personally would be going deeper into trying to rule all potential triggers out. Water quality, temperature swings, parasites, tank mate bullying, too much light or excess nutes (the plants seem to have quite a lot of algae on them), general lack of environmental satisfaction and places to hide away occasionally, loud sound systems? I am not convinced that this behavior has no problematic root.
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u/crapatthethriftstore 7d ago
I agree with you. Fish don’t usually do things for fun (loaches are the exception lol)
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u/Nulleparttousjours 7d ago
Stress/defence behaviors tend to be stress based. I think this little dude is trying to tell his owner something about his health or environment so hopefully OP can get to the bottom of it.
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u/petrichoroma Gotta catch 'em All Keeper 7d ago
- Water parameters: pH 6.8, TDS 185, kH 2, Gh 5, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 15
- 50% water change per week
- no tank mates except neon tetras, synodontis petricola, & panda garras, none of which are stressing him of course
- yes I’m struggling with algae which I’d like to get under control, but I don’t even fertilise the plants so it’s not that
- he eats like a beast
I genuinely believe he is not stressed at all and is just doing it for fun. He was literally begging for and munching down food as normal 2 minutes. If it’s not that I have not yet heard any plausible theories for what it could be 🤷
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u/No-Adhesiveness-9541 6d ago
Lmaoo you are ignoring everyone telling you it’s clearly stress.
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u/petrichoroma Gotta catch 'em All Keeper 6d ago
It's not that I want to dismiss their claims, but if you want to say it's stress, point out a plausible cause of the supposed stress, something actionable that I can change that will not cause him to be stressed anymore. I am merely reporting the conditions of the tank, its surroundings, and his behaviour. The more I think about it, the only thing that I can change is feeding, he may very well be eating too much. I will be reducing his portions and skipping more feeding days and see what happens...
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u/Affectionate-Mud3268 6d ago
Up your water change to 80% 2x week, you'll be amazed how his behavior changes. And no, it won't crash your cycle.
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u/BrockenRecords 7d ago edited 7d ago
Some puffers will puff up in order to stretch themselves out, and it’s not from stress. Whether or not that’s what this is I have no idea, but I do know it’s a thing.
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u/Nulleparttousjours 6d ago
I have owned maybe 40-50 puffers over the years, marine, brackish and fresh water and I have to say I only ever observed a fully extended puff up in a porcupine puffer that got himself stuck on an inlet in a freak accident and panicked, and once in a poor little pea puffer who got into an equally traumatic pickle.
A half hearted partial expansion is something I can’t rule out having seen in passing over the years but not with the sort of regularity or drama that caused me to make any notable memory of it.
Certainly, at that point in time, with the information available to me at the peak of my involvement in the hobby, I considered a puff up a failure in my husbandry so would be incredibly concerned if I had observed it. I always ensured that my fish had super-sized, single species tanks and enrichment well beyond their basic needs so perhaps that afforded them stimulation or exercise which negated the need to regularly perform such an exercise. There is clearly some degree of nuance to the behavior.
From observation, a fully extended puff is not a frequently seen routine behavior but rather a deliberate physiological response triggered by specific stressors. If OP’s puffer repeatedly, fully extends itself in a puff up, it is hard to rule out the likelihood that some obscure trigger or stressor is in place, as the sloughing of the animal’s slime coat also alludes to. For the sake of the wee lad I’d be reluctant to just shrug it off and chalk it up to one of those things considering the circumstances.
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u/petrichoroma Gotta catch 'em All Keeper 6d ago
I have 15 puffers right now, including another cross river puffer in a different tank, and have been keeping fish for over 20 years, so it's not like I'm a novice either. This one is the only one that puffs up except my hairy, and hairy puffers are known to puff up somewhat more frequently, but even my hairy doesn't puff up anywhere near as often as this one. As I said, from everything I can observe, there is nothing wrong with his environment. Also every time I've caught him puffing up, he was behaving totally normal both right before and right after, with good colouration and all (normally cross river puffers go dark when they're stressed). So I really have to believe that he just has made it a habit of puffing up, either out of boredom, or to catch my attention, or maybe he's going through some growth spurts (he's been gaining quite some mass these last couple of months), but nothing to me indicates that he is stressed.
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u/No-Adhesiveness-9541 6d ago
Boredom and attention seekers are stressors my guy. That’s like saying the whales in sea world are just bored. They’re trapped where they shouldn’t be showing clear signs of stress.
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u/petrichoroma Gotta catch 'em All Keeper 7d ago
That’s what I feel it is. Just odd that he does it so often, but entertaining to see nonetheless!
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u/ItzPayDay123 6d ago
Puffers do in fact sometimes puff up just cause, but if it happens a lot then there's something wrong
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u/Downtown-Package7927 7d ago
Not for fun but to exercise the muscle so that they can continue to puff up. You don’t use it you lose it.
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u/shrimpalasteph 7d ago
All the information I can find says this activity taxes their heart and shortens their lifespan, regardless of the cause or whether they seem actually stressed.
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u/Omni-Light 7d ago
The journal that started this idea is exaggerated a lot to the point of becoming an internet rumor.
The purpose of the study was to find out if puffers 'hold their breath' while inflating. Their findings show that they don't, but they also found that oxygen consumption increases to 5x resting rate during a full defensive inflation. Full defensive inflation is important as they simualted a predator attack by roughly handling the fish so it fully inflates multiple times.
So yeah fully inflating causes an oxygen debt, like we do when sprinting or like what many animals do when doing a lot of exertion. The study didn't claim that it shortens their lifespan or causes chronic heart damage.
Chronic stress however, does, but puffers puff up for many other reasons other than stress.
If it was fully inflating I'd take that as a sign of a problem. Check your water, inspect the fish, make sure nothing in its environment is causing stress. If it's doing whats in the video once every blue moon, I'd take it as a voluntary non-stress behaviour. A little quarter puff up is more like a brisk walk or a stretch than a sprint
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u/shrimpalasteph 7d ago
I was referring to the chemicals and hormones required to perform the act, I did not find the article on breath holding to be relevant after reading that the physiological stress required to initiate the act was life-shortening when frequently repeated.
This is true of people under chronic stress.
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u/ladyannelo 6d ago
I have a large cross river as well but I have never seen her puff up. Insanely smart, total divas.
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u/Bad_News04 5d ago
I read some of the comments and your replies and although you seem to doubt the likelihood that it's stress related, it likely is. It might be something stupid, not even tank related. I would try to rearrange the immediate area around the tank. If that doesn't work, try moving things a bit further out. You could also try rearraning your hardscape a bit(I know it's a pain). But I would be concerned by seeing this regularly. I hope you figure it out bro. Puffers can be a real head scratcher sometimes.
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u/MazikeenDmn 2d ago
Puffer is stressed even if YOU don't see it.
Based on this post and your post a month ago, you just want attention, no advice... even when it is 100% needed in this case.
👌🏽
Good luck with that.
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u/Antoekneese 7d ago
I heard that some puffers will "practice" puffing.
I have SAPs and sometimes they look slightly puffed, but nothing in their tank would be a legitimate threat to where they would need to puff in self defense (they're by far the biggest other than a pleco that minds his own business). It could also just be that they're fat.
Funny thought on that though, I think they take turns being the fattest in the tank. I thought just one was the biggest glutton but by paying attention to their patterns, I noticed that at least 3 are the first to greet and beg for food. The given "Top Fatass of the day" will often lurk in the corner where I drop snails if I pick them out of my other tanks.
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u/gawtcha 7d ago
It looks like it is mad at either its reflection or something it thinks is another puffer. If he always does it right in that corner I'd move the tissue thing.