Needle Fish Will Not eat
We have a needle fish we have had for a few months now we were feeding all the time and was told by the Pet Store to fed him 5 feeders every few days. He is in a 30 gallon tank with 5 small Tiger barbs, 1 Severum cichlid and 2 Dojo's which are about 8 inches each. About two months ago our cichlid( SEABASS) got ich we treated him and all was fine. Now our needle fish (STANLEY) is brown Has not eaten for over a week. Can you give me any ideas on what his problem could be? Thank You. 
Donna Slawson
< Needle fish are mostly a brackish fish. I would recommend a teaspoon of sea salt per 5 gallons of water. Your Dojos will not like the salt and may become ill.-Chuck>

An addicted eel!!!
Hey all, 
<Hi, Pufferpunk here> 
I wonder if people remember who I am. 
<Not really, I'm kinda new.> 
I've had no problems so no real need to come scrambling back for new advice. 
<That's good.> 
My little experiment with a saltwater aquarium went well till I got bored of the maintenance and dropped it back down to a brackish tank again. 
<Hmmm, the only difference is a protein skimmer, IMO.> 
My Tetraodon nigroviridis that was in that tank through the saltwater and now brackish has grown very fat, and ever since I added in bumblebee gobies he's been looking much more content to have the company of their species again (he was raised from the smallest size with two bumblebee gobies before I traded them away). 
<GSPs are best kept in marine conditions as adults. See: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/BrackishSubWebIndex/gspsart.htm  I have never been able to keep smaller, slow-moving fish with my adult GSPs.> 
My hunt for aquatic plants ended when my aquarium now looks like a jungle and I have to frequently cut and remove the excess foliage to allow the light to hit everything. 
<Curious, how low BW SG did you go? There are no plants that could survive over 1.005, never mind grow into a jungle.> 
In that tank I have a male and female pair of johannis, a very lively banded archerfish, a masked julie, a Melanochromis exasperatus and four angels that I just acquired today. The angels are actually absolutely fabulous specimens, which I had personal pick between from friends of mine who are professional angel breeders. I wasn't able to pick any purebreds, but I did get a chocolate/marble, marble/smokey, gold/koi and marble/koi angel. 
<All of the fish you just listed are not BW fish (except the archer. Are these all in the same BW tank as the GSP? The angelfish are actually soft water fish, which is the opposite of BW conditions. Also, those angels are going to be without fins in the very near future in the company of your puffer.> 
Then finally there is the Red Sea whitespotted moray eel, who brings up the subject of this email.  Four months have gone by since I made the trade for this eel, and it took two months just for him to get accustomed to his new surroundings. After the first month he would come out and explore, and after the second month he was finally eating the krill that I'd stick in front of him on the end of air tube. Since then he's started to show more signs of aggressiveness when exposed to the smell of food, and when he actually attacks the food on the krill-on-a-stick. He seems to be acting like an adult based on how adult morays are supposed to be aggressively, but what I find weird is that as aggressive as he may be he wont attack anything live. I've put live mollies and silverbacks (the only thing he would eat when I first got him) right in front of his face, but he wouldn't dare touch them, even if I helped by half killing them for an easy catch. Now he eats krill like a starving hog in heat but I can't find anything else to vary with his diet. Also I'm noticing that there are frequently pieces of krill too small for his poor eyesight to see. What I mainly need is to find out what I can use as a larger version of krill, and another type of food that he might be coaxed into eating so I can vary his diet. He's a real healthy stinker, but he's still an addicted stinker nonetheless. Any other ideas would help. 
<Try threading most any food you can find from the fish dept of your grocery store. Bounce it in front of his nose on the end of the thread. You need to be very patient, it may take a while, but he should eat it. You could start with shrimp. Again, this fish also prefers high-end BW & SW as an adult. ~PP> 

Puffer Eating Woodlice  3/22/04
Hi, Pufferpunk here>
Have you heard of puffer fish eating woodlice.  Mine eat one that
got put into the tank (by mistake) along with earthworm.  The puffer made short work of it and so far seems OK.  What do you think.  Could it become a regular food source or should it remain a one off?
<I don't see why they wouldn't like woodlice--mine love crickets.  Just make sure their staple diet is mad up of hard, crunchy foods for their teeth.  ~PP>

Spectrum for Puffers?
Hi Bob,
I'm wondering if you could find out if Spectrum has been "tested" on
freshwater or brackish puffers. I'd love to find a
nutritionally-enhanced pelleted food that my puffers would eat. They've
turned their noses away from a dozen different things I've tried,
including pellets with shrimp, krill, and other typical puffer
favorites, so I'm a bit skeptical that they'd eat the Spectrum.
--Ananda
<Am cc'ing Pablo Tepoot here (the owner, manufacturer of Spectrum foods). I recall he did have some good-sized marine puffers living on his pelleted foods... but did not have any freshwater or brackish animals at his home/farm as far as I recall. From what I've observed re the line, I would be very surprised if these other puffers did not accept the food. Pablo? Bob Fenner>

Brackish feeding? (10/21/03)
Hey, just a brief question I guess.
<Ananda here to try for a not-too-long answer...>
I am trying to figure out what to feed my fish. I had actually asked before but kind of got fuzzy results, and I wasn't that specific in the first place.
<Sorry about the fuzziness.>
In my aquarium so far aside from aquatic plants, I have two mollies (Poecilia latipinna - I did my homework),
<Hmmm. I forget how big your tank is, but do consider getting another female if your tank can withstand the extra bio-load. The females will appreciate it.>
a baby spotted puffer (Guentheridia formosa),
<Are you certain of this species? Fishbase lists this as a marine species. It's more likely that you have a "green-spotted puffer", one of the Tetraodon species.>
and two bumblebee gobies (Brachygobius sua). I was suggested to feed them chopped up shrimp, the tails for the puffer, the shrimp bodies for the gobies.... but the problem is that my puffer is still a 3/4" baby. The only thing he will eat out of a mixture I make (krill-tropical flake-shrimp pellet-blood worm) is the blood worms, although for the most part the food always disappears in time.
<I didn't realize he was so little! In that case, you're going to want to start raising pond snails, so you can feed him the little ones. Pond snails are mostly spherical, with a bit of a point, and should be free at any fish store that has them; they're considered a nuisance and hitchhike in on plants. The small, nuisance-type rams horn snails would probably also work. To raise them, just give them their own container of water and feed them. You don't need to keep them in brackish water, but they will need occasional water changes.>
I'm more worried about the gobies though. I never catch them eating really since they hide a lot. Will he be ok for the time being eating blood worms or should I be looking for another type of diet for the little thing? Will that chopped up shrimp technique work if I beat up the pieces enough? Would the shrimp even be good for the mollies?
<My mollies will nibble shrimp, but algae-based food is better for them. For the gobies and puffer, try taking frozen shrimp to a shredder. That should leave it in more bite-sized threads. Bumblebee gobies in particular are rather fussy. You can alternate the bloodworms with glassworms.>
Robert
<Hope this helps! --Ananda>

Brackish feeding? - More questions.
<Hi! Ananda here today...I'm going to combine these, as I had started work on one when the second came in...>
Ok, as for the mollies, I apparently had a brain fart in the store when not realizing to check their sex. I'd assume that they are both males because of the long points on each of their tails.
<It's not the tails that are the indicator, it's the modified anal fin, called the gonopodium. It is long and pointed, whereas the females have “normal”-looking anal fins.>
I currently have everyone in my 10 gallon while my 55 gallon aquarium awaits another bag of sand and then cycling for a brackish setup. With 5 fish already, I could handle one more molly if the ones I had were both female (although I'm guessing not), but I don't know if I can hold 4 extra females.
<I would wait on that.>
Considering that the mollies are about an inch to an inch and a half long considering their tails, could I hold that many more?
<Yes, in the 55g.>
As for my puffer, there is a slight green coloration on top of him, so you may be right. What's the genus and species on that type?
<Probably Tetraodon nigroviridis. Head over to Google's search page, click the Image tab near the top of the page, and do a search on “nigroviridis”. That should bring up several photos you can compare to.>
I have a couple of fishbowls that I can put snails in, but does it need aeration?
<Filtration and aeration will help.>
A lid to prevent escapees?
<Nope. Not for the strictly-aquatic snails.>
What do I feed the snails?
<Old fish food, blanched green veggies, leaves you trim from aquatic plants....>
How long till they reproduce and how long should I have the puffer on that diet?
<They should reproduce fairly quickly. Puffers should have some crunchy food daily, if possible, but they really appreciate a varied diet.>
Final note, the gobies definitely seem to be fussy. The most they will usually do is chew on a bloodworm and spit out the worm when there's no blood left in it. There are no stores here with glassworms. The best thing I can get here is hatching my own brine shrimp, but aren't they basically nutrient barren?
<Newly-hatched brine shrimp are far better than adult brine shrimp, but not sufficient for a complete diet. You might look into raising other live foods, perhaps vinegar eels,  grindal worms, white worms, or other critters you can culture easily. (Try Googling “live fish food” for this one.)>
<I'm going to combine these, as I had started work on one when the second came in...>
Greetings once again....I had talked to Ananda before, and I'd gotten a rough idea of what I was looking for, but in the end I still have a question for the crew. First off, we were in a bit of a mix when trying to figure out what type of a puffer I have. On the store it said "Spotted Puffer," but as we all know, pet stores have the great ability to get their common names wrong.
<Sometimes they are indeed “wrong”, other times it's more a question of what names are used locally.>
She had suggested that it be a Green Spotted Puffer, but I couldn't find that name under www.fishbase.com.
<If Fishbase has a weakness, it is that many common names we actually use are not included....>
So I'm still clueless as to what he is, and although he has a green shading on his back with a white belly, he still looks a lot like the Guentheridia Formosa. I'll post a couple pictures with this email.
<No photos came through...could you re-send?>
With many thanks to Ananda, I took her advice of looking for snails to much on, and my friend at the fish store went around fishing through their tanks to fill me a bag with a few snails, which I took home and stuck in an open fishbowl with a plant and an algae pellet to take care of everyone.
<Sounds like a good start.>
I've barely even had it and I'm seeing tons of baby snails crawling all over the place, and the puffer loves them.
<And you get to watch his hunting behavior.>
The other part was about my two bumblebee gobies (Brachygobius sua)... which ARE picky eaters, but the only thing that they will eat or only have an interest in is my bloodworms.
<Not surprising, though they may show an interest in frozen/thawed mysis shrimp if you can get them.>
Actually I'd stay longer to say more, but my mollies have just started to shoot out fry and I have to catch them and separate them before they can eat anymore.
<Well, now we know that you don't have a pair of males! :-) >
I dunno what you people do to catch fry, but I'll be damned if there is anything better than a turkey baster for catching those little things, lol.
<*blink* Three years of keeping mollies and catching molly fry, and that never even occurred to me...I use a couple of nets.>
Robert *Turkey basting the baby mollies*
<Truly, some excellent ideas come from people who are do not know what they are “supposed” to do. Thanks for the idea! --Ananda>

Vacation Feeding for Green Spotted Puffer
How many days is it safe to go without feeding a green-spotted puffer. He is about1-1/2 inches long & usually eats 1 small slug and 3-4 large Spirulina flakes twice daily.  I will be gone for two days and then again 1 week in Sept.   I plan on having someone come by daily to feed him in Sept., but am not sure about the weekend thing.  Thanks, Donna
<Feed well a few days before the trip and I think it can get by for a couple days. Don>

Bloodworms -- possible cause of puffer loss? (03/17/03)
<Ananda here this morning...>
Hi. I just lost my three puffer fish.
<Sorry to hear that.>
They had been fine for a while and all of a sudden, the other day, they started dying.  I'm wondering if the frozen bloodworms I'm feeding them have anything to do with it.  Like maybe
there's too much protein in the tank.  
<Unlikely that the food itself was the direct cause of it. However, it's easy to overfeed, and excess proteins in the tank can decay into ammonia/nitrites/nitrates -- and high levels of those can cause fish death. Without more information on your tank, it's impossible to say with any certainty what the cause of death was.>
Any help is greatly appreciated.
<Do look over the puffer articles and FAQs... both marine and freshwater/brackish, regardless of which type of puffer you had. Much of what has been written applies to most puffers.
Thanks,
Angie
<You're welcome. --Ananda>

Figure eight puffer
Hello,
<Cheerio, old sport! Anthony Calfo in your service>
I have owned a freshwater fish tank of some form for many years.
Whether it was 50 gallon, 20, or 10 (I have a 10 right now because of
the convenience), I have never really paid attention to pH, ammonia, etc. 
<like an ice pick in my ears...hehe>
I use a water X and add a teaspoon of salt for every 10 gallons.
<I like that part <wink>>
Right now I have a 10 gallon tank that follows me pretty much everywhere. 
<most people have cats and puppies for this but hey... enjoy>
Today I bought a figure eight puffer, I have always wanted
a puffer and finally I decided to get one, but not before asking the
dealer a bunch of questions. He said that although he may get
territorial, he is a good community fish. 
<you dealer is a fibber <G>>
He said the fish will eat flake food, which is what I normally feed my fish, but I often give brine shrimp. 
<Puffers are cute, lovable and dedicated fin nippers. They also will suffer on a diet of flake and brine shrimp. As crustacean eaters, they need hard shelled foods to wear down their naturally growing teeth. Without it the teeth will become overgrown to the point where the animal cannot feed. As such flake food is too soft and brine-shrimp without enrichment (Selcon soaked and the like) is a useless fare that is essentially water made to look like shrimp. Too bad it is so well liked by fish... it is the lowest grade food. Add frozen Mysid, krill and plankton to the diet (freeze dried krill too). Some folks keep fast breeding live snails (the puffers love them!!!) to help with the teeth too>
He said my salinity would be fine. 
<probably although they could take and might enjoy a lot more salt to truly be brackish>
Once I bought the fish and released him into the tank, everything at the moment appears to be fine. I haven't fed yet, so I don't know how that will go. I started looking things up on the net here and one guy has me really afraid. He seems to know what he is talking about, but he says that having all these conditions right is vital and puffers are very sensitive. Can you help me out a little here? 
<some truth to it... they are scale less fish and as such are sensitive to water quality and medications>
Also, since I have released my figure eight puffer into the tank, he has swam up and down the side wall non-stop. It appears normal, but I saw a comment somewhere saying this was a bad thing, is this true? 
<common but not normal or healthy in the long run. A stress induced response to many factors (salinity, light, water quality, etc)>
Please help me out, thanks.
<no problem my friend... much has been written on this topic. Do a search on this site (tag the bullet for WWM only under the keyword field at the bottom of the home page) and look through the archives of FAQs. Much information there. Also, look through the brackish articles by following the links from the WWM homepage as well. I suspect that you will be enlightened and able to enjoy your puffer very soon. Best regards, Anthony>
Dave