Skidish Puffer?

[JPloman]

I took my puffer back to the store last night and traded him for some other tank friends. I got another cleaner shrimp and about 20 turbo snails for the trade.

Here is the deal, when I got home last night from work I found the puffer in the corner of the tank all freaked out. The green cromis were on the other side of the tank freaked out as well. When I stuck my head near the tank where the puffer was, he shot out from the corner like I was gonna bite him. I thought that was really odd behavior for a puffer. When we first put him in the tank the shrimp jumped on him and gave him a bath... I thought they ate shrimp. After that he just hung out in the back of the tank like he was hidding.

Does anyone here know if this is normal behavior for a puffer or have any suggestions on what went wrong with him? Did I do the right thing by tanking him back to the store?

 

[tripper]

How long had you had the puffer? If he has been in there for a while and he's acting like that, i would say it would be a good idea to give him back if the LFS would take him. However, if it had only been a couple days I would not have been as concerned because it takes some fish a long time to acclimate to a new tank.

That being said, if you had inverts in the tank and wanted to keep a puffer, you would have seen all your inverts eaten eventually. So it was probably a good idea to give him back regardless of his condition.

tripper