Puffer Fish question...

[Shane Hoffman]

All,

I had a 5 inch dogface puffer fish that had the greatest personalit and the whole family adored. Long story short he was removed from the 150gallon DT to my QT to deal with a small case if ich. Well the ich dissappeared in 3 days yet I still decided to leave him in the QT and and continue malichite green treatment for a full 4 to 5 weeks. A week before he was to reenter DT...... he was as healthy as can be and happy...

My QT is a 20 gallon simple setup in spare room. My neighbors son was over and the 12 year old kid decided to poke the puffer fish with his finger. Whenever anyone approaches the tank he races right to the front...well when the kid reached in "just to feel him" he puffed up to the max size he could....

He never expelled the water and stayed puffed over night.....he diesd the next day...

Ive never had a puffer puff up before.....in the wild they say multiple incidents of puffing can be fatal...is it common in home aquariums for puffers to die after only one puff...or could he have had a physical deformity that wouldnt allow him to expell the water???

any ideas????

 

[E.intheC]

Depending on how rough the kid was, he may have done it on his own. Also, just recovering from ich, i'm sure the puffer was already in a weakened state.

Simply puffing up once doesn't typically kill the puffers, no.

 

[username in use]

poke the kid till he puffs up and teach him a lesson.

 

[bigmike1964]

Hello,This my sound funny ,My son in-law had a 6" dog face puffer that blow up to max size ,He didnt know what to do so he reached in his tank and rubbed its belly it was fine after that,But 2 week,s later it jump from the tank when they were out and died.It was a cool puffer sounds like your acted like a dog when anyone went by the tank.

 

[Dante_JoseCuerv]

I agree with E.intheC, the fish had just recovered from ich and like most creatures in nature the period of time just after recovery and even up to a few weeks afterward are very critical. I don't think the kid just went in and poked it though, because most puffers will just move away or even try to bite a kid's finger. I've seen it quite a bit, but I'm guessing this kid went in there and like jabbed it or something. Either way... a single poke and puff shouldn't have killed it. Sounds like you had a very cool fish.

 

[Shane Hoffman]

Any ideas on why he never deflated until he died?

Does this mean he was still feeling threatened until he died, since he never deflated?

After an hour of being inflated I shut the tank lights off and covered it with a blanket so that no external light sources were allowed in. Basically I assumed the quieter and darker the enviroment the calmer he would get.

Also, does anyone think there is any logic to bigmikes comment about reaching in and rubbing the belly or applying gentle pressure....is there a way to assist deflation with human intervention. I am definately going to get another one....I do have a friend who had one and the teeth got to big and intefered with the puffer eating (he did not take my advice and make sure he had tooth dulling food once in a while) he had to remove it from the tank and file down its teeth...it survived just fine...never even puffed...it was out of the tank twice for 90 seconds each time....so I know they can survive being handled if there is a way to assisist in deflation.

 

[bhelne01]

are puffer reef safe

 

[Dante_JoseCuerv]

Technically speaking... puffers will destroy a reef. That being said though, I've seen dogfaces, burr puffers, porcs and some small canthigaster puffers kept in reefs with almost no problems. I guess it's hit or miss, usually miss though.

 

[johnike]

Pufferpunk on the CMAS board can answer any of your questions. She also runs her own Puffer forum, John

 

[reefergeorge]

I see my porc puff up about once a month, and he is coral safe. Not invert safe.

For the month I had my df puffer i saw him puff up once, and he was fine. He got a taste for zoas, and was sold.

So ime a puffer puffing up will not hurt anything, but each case is different.

 

[blakeinsb]

Puffer not deflating

Puffer not deflating

Was the puffer on the surface puffed up or under water. i know from catching huge velvet puffers in mexico that if they puff up with air or air mixed with water and not just air then they can become unable to puff back down and will die. if this happens a diver or snorkeler must slowly bring the puffer down while its puffer rubbing its belly to ease it into puffing back down.

 

[fishhuman]

God id be so pi$$ed at your neighbors kid right now, losing a puffer really is like losing a dog, my saltwater puffers never puffed up on me but my freshwater one did and he died the next day i have many theories about his death but none of them would applie to your situation, however when your puffer was inflated was he wider than the 20 gallon because if so that could have hurt him. The next thing you should do is show your neighbors son the 220 dollar price tag on a full grown dogface and make him pay you back!