#dragon puffer

[crazyfishmaiden]

I couldn’t upload a picture and not share a short video. It’s not time for his crunchy food, and normally I don’t like to feed him the same day he gets a water change. He didn’t bite me today or attempt to bite me when I was scrubbing the walls, and siphoning up food debris, and for that I rewarded him with a squiggly worm. It’s always funny to watch him inhale it, and it sticks out the gills. Then he sucks it in and well, bye bye worm. Hello happy puffer. Sorry about the slight algae, he backed himself into that area and I really didn’t want to push it since he gets really moody during WC day. I’ll wipe it clean another day.

[crazyfishmaiden]

I want to share my adorable Kupo, the Dragon Puffer, also known as Lumpy Potato, and Kupo the Magnificent. He is doing one of his favorite things, pretending to be a piece wood. This is classic ambush predator behavior for this species of puffer. They usually doesn’t burrow into sand (like the Miurus does).

He is honestly one of the more challenging species to keep. He’s fussy on his water, so it has to be super clean. He also makes a giant mess every time he eats, so there is that. He also likes to bite me every time I do a water chance (today I won and he didn’t get me). He’s very finicky about his food, and he also will spend a good chunk of the day just sitting somewhere not moving. Some people may not see the point of keeping something like this. However he seems to recognize me and he will approach me, and get really active when he’s hungry. If he’s not hungry he’ll just look at me, it’s funny. He also watches the cats, and sometimes the smallest will have long staring contests.

[crazyfishmaiden]

This is Kupo the Magnificent wishing you all a happy holiday!

[crazyfishmaiden]

So a Dragon Puffer...

Finally accepted his food offering half-way through my shift yesterday. For those of you who don’t know, Dragon Puffers are a bit strange. In fact, they are kind of like reincarnated cats or something.

This puffer had decided to sit at this really awkward angle (should have caught a good picture, but it was a mad busy day). At some point a young girl and her mother come by and notice the puffer sitting funny. So they ask if the puffer is okay.

I told them the puffer was fine, and that he just got finished eating. I brought up Thanksgiving, and how after you eat all that food, you kind of just want to sit and watch TV or something. That’s basically what the fish is doing.

This young girl went wide eyed, looked up at her mother and exclaimed, “Oh so that’s what dad does after every time we go to Golden Corral?”. Her mom looked kind of embarrassed, and then the kid looks at me and back and her and says “Sometimes we don’t see him for a while after that”.

It was precious. So I needed to share this.

[crazyfishmaiden]

I don’t trust this puff enough to hand feed, but at least he’s willing to come to the feeder tongs to eat. It’s useful to teach certain fish to eat like this. Once the association is made that People = Food, you end up with a less stressed fish who is more interactive, and comes out more often.

Every time I get a fish to this point, it is not uncommon for them to be out in the morning waiting to be fed. They also go from hiding all the time, to not. I’ll get cichlids to feed from the top one pellet at a time to help them get over being afraid of people.

I really wish more pet-stores took the time to work with the animals like this. 

[crazyfishmaiden]

Who would think that beyond this cute fish lurks a dragon, temper wise. Meet the Dragon Puffer! We’re very lucky to be able to grab these when they were available, as they are quite rare!

This one was vegetating after a good feed. Taken at my work, one of many odd-balls my work gets in and I have the privledge of caring for.