Fig8 Puffer Fish building Bubble Nest?

[Dan06]

29gal tank...

Two non-aggressive Fig8 Puffers (from what I've seen, can't watch them all the time...haha) are both non-territorial and seem to spend most of their time together.

They are housed with a Common Pleco who has gradually been acclimated to a low salinity water. I don't believe it's ideal conditions for the Pleco, but he's growing quickly and eats like a freakin' pig... very nice coloring too for a Common Pleco...

Anyways, the Fig8 puffers seem to be building bubble nests at each end of the tank. The Pleco will make a trip up to the bubble nests and disturb it, which in turn will send both Fig8 Puffers into a panic attack and they both swim franticly around the pleco, but don't bite until he leaves the bubble nests alone.

I'm not familiar with bubble nests. Why do fish make them?

Also, my puffers are both odd about a certain fake plant I have in the tank, they will face it, nibble on the edge of a leaf...pause for a moment and then do a funny & sudden twitch. They are actually tearing the plant to shreds slowly. Is there possibly something wrong with my puffers? Any sort of twitching from fish alarms me about their health.

 

[Dan06]

Nobody?

 

[Sir Pufferfish]

Hello,

Sounds to me like they are breeding !! wow
I do keep figure 8 puffers myself but never experienced this
i didn’t even know they build bubble nest !
All i know is certain fish like Angel fish do the same when breeding,
the behaviour of you puffers will be normal as they are trying to defend the nest.
If i was you i would move the plec or any others from the tank as a precaution otherwise i can see some nasty fighting going on !!
and leave the puffers be.
Do a search on breeding figure 8, im sure you will find some info.

As far as the fake plants are concerned, my puffers, especially the gsp leave holes in my plants, mainly the vallis plants so i presume they are trying to do the same to the fake ones you have.
This is normal behaviour i have been told from previous threads and articles but the main reason is they are trying to find snails etc on the plants.

The twitching is cause for concern, usually they do this when they have external parasites like whitespot but if they look physically ok i would not worry too much and i would not add medication especially i they are breeding !
It may be some strange behaviour when breeding or something !!
Please keep us posted.

Hope this helps.

 

[Dan06]

I'll try to get some pics.

The bubble nest is rather large too. Unfortunately I don't know much about breeding, I'd like to research the matter more....

Thanks for the information!!

 

[Bitsy]

I don't know a lot about these guys but I did a little bit of reading from LiveAquaria and came up with this:

Spawning occurs in brackish water. The eggs will be laid on the bottom, either on the substrate or on a flat rock. After the eggs are fertilized, the male will stay behind to guard them for approximately 7 days until the fry become waterborne.

So I don't think that they build bubble nests, at least thats what I gathered from this article. Good luck!