Puffer Fish Puffed Up!

Good Morning- Quick question for you guys and gals.. I came downstairs this morning and my spiney box puffer was puffed up. As soon as I approached the tank in my panic to check things out he "deflated." All the params checked out ok.. PH was a litle low.

Nitrates - 0
Nitrites - 0
Ammonia - 0
PH- 7.9

I added some PH up to get the PH to where it needs to be. Id this normal? There is a clarkie clown in the tank with him do you think they just had an early morning argument. Perhapps the Puffer came home late last night!!! ;D

 

The Puffer will display the puffed up behavior when scarred, stressed or threatened, so one of those circumstances portrayed in your tank over the night.
Fortunately, things have calmed down! When Puffer's blow up it is a taxing and stressful situation for puffers and should be held at a minimum, if possible!

 

Thanks- yeah I'm just not sure what would have caused it outside of the clarkie. Everyone was sleeping and all params were in check. As soon as I approached the tank he deflated.. I just fed it and it ate fine.. Wonder if they will do this if they are hungry?? Maybe I'm not feeding enough..

 

I would be wary of adding PH up to a tank based of the PH level in the morning. PH levels drop over the night and raise during the day. SO unless this is a constant problem .....

 

My LFS had this happen a few weeks ago and found that it was just hungry, fed some krill and it went back to normal size...

 

Some puffers will just puff up occassionally just to do it. They do it to expand their skin to keep it "in shape" just like muscles. My porcupine would do that and just chill, swim around the tank like that for about 5 minutes and go back down to normal like nothing.