Porcipine belly cut open

V

val1

New member
Just as the subject line says. Wake up in the morning and he was just sitting on the bottom of the tank not moving, as he does this all the time I was not really worried about him to much. When I can home from work my wife told me that she had seen him swimming around and that his guts were hanging out.

Being the super guy that I am, I told her she was full of s**t and she need to lay off the booze during the day and clean the house better. (Just kidding about the booze).

In any case after getting my a$$ handed to me by my beautiful and loving wife (she will be reading this later) I started to inspect Spike. His belly has been split open from his chin to his tall and I am not sure how this could have happened.( Looks like someone take a knife and tried to split him in two) I have had him for about 7 months, he is the big man on campus and has no trouble with any other fish. He shares his home with a Dogface, HT, Yellow Tang, Hawk Fish, Clown (Nemo) and 7 small Damsels.

If anyone has any idea what has happened here please feel free to let me know. As of right now I have him in a QT, he does not look too well, and I don't expect him to make it. I just want some kind of idea what happened here.

Thanks
Drew
 
Is it possible something may have spooked him and in the process he may have hit something that sliced him. Anything in the tank that could have a sharp edge or corner on it he may have hit??
 
Wow, Im sorry to hear that.

How big is he? Sounds like he is the biggest fish in the tank maybe?

Its very hard to cut through the skin of a puffer, so its hard for me to think of what could have done this...They have very "stretchy" skin that in my experience doesn't rip or cut very easily at all. Its one of the good things about being scaleless fish.

When I had my stars and stripes puffer with my porc, the 16" S&S accidentally bite the stomach of the porc with its huge teeth but could not puncture the skin. You could see these massive teeth marks in a circle on his belly but you could also see how tough the porcs skin was. That would be a puncture and not a slice or cut but their skin should stand up well to cuts too.

Anyways, like I said I have no ideas really but it had to be something incredibly sharp. I don't think theres any way one of those other fish did this. It would have had to be equipment maybe? Is there anything that could have cut him?

The one other thing I could maybe think of is eating WAY too much??? I have seen my porc eat so much that he looked like he would literally explode but instead he ended up throwing most of it back up. Did he eat anything? Tankmate? Seems kind of far fetched too though...

I also don't think any rock could really do that either.

Its very strange to me but maybe someone has seen this before.
 
Well like I said I don't expect him to make it and he didn't. Funny to think you get so attached to a fish.
YOU WILL BE MISSED SPIKE!

There is nothing in my tank that is that sharp enough to make a cut that clean. I have no power heads, no knife blades sticking out or swords for that matter. This is a total mystery to me.

As for eating too much I am really carful when it comes to feeding, I have learned my lesson on over feeding. Once and a while I give the puffers live feeder crabs but it hasn't been for a while now, about a month.
 
What probably happened is the dog face puffer and he got into it, sometimes two puffers wont get along and if the two fought this could easily have happened. Sometimes even when getting along something triggers agression between the two and the dog face has the teeth to cut any fish in half.
 
Do you have live rock in your system? If so, there could be resident creature living in there that you haven't seen yet! And swiped the Puffer as he was swimming by.
 
The porci and dog face were best of friends. The dogface is very mellow and not aggressive at all, the clown fish even takes food away from him with no problem.

What kind of creature can put a 5" cut in a porci?
 
Sorry for your loss.

I don't think a fish could eat enough to really split open like that. Even if it did, I don't think the cut would be as even as you describe.

Theoretically, the spine from a tang could do it, but I wouldn't expect such a long and deep cut from a yellow tang. A sohal or clown maybe, but it would be unusual even in that case.

There may be a sharp spine of a rock or something that it scraped against.

Any chance you got any pics?
 
I added a puffer to my tank and a week later he was lying on the bottom of the tank with his guts laying out too. I suspected it was my lunar wrasse that killed him but the funny thing was is that i have never seen any of my fish gutted before it was kind if strange. My theory is that it was killed by another fish.
 
A few years ago at a LFS I was going to get a 3" Spiny Puffer and the guy at the store scooped him out with a net and put him in the plasic container for bagging so he inflated (at that time I didn't even know you weren't supposed to scoop him out with net).

Well I guess he inflated too much or maybe was bumped when he was inflated when being placed into the plastic container because he ruptured much like what the original op described. I don't know about the clean straight incision like cut as I didn't see that, but the poor puffer did have his insides hanging out after rupture and it was pretty gross.

Maybe he got into a fight with another fish and puffed up and possibly hit a hard object or got a fish bite that ruptured him as well?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13217180#post13217180 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by val1
I am guessing this is going into the: Who the hell knows pile.
Sorry no pictures.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, you might be right. It would be nice to figure this out since it sounds like it's not an isolated issue.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13222964#post13222964 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Mike5252
Possible Mantis Shrimp strike?
Click to expand...

Not a bad thought, but I wouldn't expect such a long gash from that.
 
I really wish I had thought of getting pictures. Well what you going to do!
If Pufferpunk is saying this is a very odd thing, Then I am at a loss for words.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13213246#post13213246 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by philter4
What probably happened is the dog face puffer and he got into it, sometimes two puffers wont get along and if the two fought this could easily have happened. Sometimes even when getting along something triggers agression between the two and the dog face has the teeth to cut any fish in half.
Click to expand...

No they do not and besides, they bite, not use their teeth as knives and cut other fish open.

Someone mentioned a tangs scalpel being able to cut a porcs belly...I would say thats nearly impossible as well.

Puffers skin is just way too thick and has way too much stretch in it to be cut by another fish, IMO...unless maybe you have a Tiger shark?
 
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