Nobody prepares you for the heartbreak of watching your puffer shut down after a member of its community tank dies. My Amazon, Frank Sinatra, has always been super active and friendly. He loves chasing me around the tank, playing with his cichlid, etc- but when my other Amazon pufferfish (Billy Joel) died, he just kinda.. shut down. The day before Billy died, Frank was super active. As soon as I took Billy out, he just stopped trying altogether. He sat motionless on the tank bottom, not even bothering to swim or eat, I thought he was dead. He had perfect tank parameters, was eating well beforehand, and no parasites. Nothing was wrong with him from what I could tell, so I can only assume his friend's disappearance really did just stress him out that badly. I've seen a few other people discussing this phenomenon, it's really fascinating.
Social fish, especially puffers, can be impacted by death just like you. They need comfort too! I removed my puffer from his original tank to prevent further stressing him out, and moved him to a hospital tank. I added stress guard, a tiny bit of salt, and some KanaPlex (I originally thought he had parasites, I don't recommend putting in heavy medicines if your fish is just stressed.)
He immediately bounced back! The day after I put him in the hospital tank, he was moving around again and as excited to see me as always. I'm so relieved
Posted by RatBlender
1 Comment
😢