Porcupine Pufferfish damaged!

[NinjaEmperor]

hey guys just registered.

ive added a koran angel to my FOWLR tank 2 days ago.

today my puffer has three bite marks in his back and the skin is missing on about a third of his underbelly.

thankfully and remarkably hes still swimming about and looking reasonable chirpy, ive isolated him to give him a chance to heal.

the obvious potential culprits are the loran angel, niger triggerfish, and snowflake eel. the bites on his back look trigger size but im not sure which fish is more likely responsible.

any ideas?

logic dictates its the koran angel but ive seen little bite marks on him before i added him.

also have you any tips for helping the puffer recover?

[silentcivilian]

Well puffers are really big chickens really. So the underbelly stuff is likely self inflicted from running and clipping a rock as they are fairly soft skinned animals. Any of his spines outa place, showing he got a little puffed up at any point?

But the Angel could just be upsetting the balance causing all the fish to get a little tempermental. The eel is likely innocent unless the puffer is trying to stick his head into the eels cave or stealing its food. Its the only time my eel ever snapped at my puffer.

But any chances you could give us sizes of all the fish?

[fishoholic]

Triggers are fairly aggressive, I've seen them bite before and they can be quite nasty, so I would lean towards the niger trigger as being the culprit.

I would keep the puffer isolated until he heals (should heal on his own as long as the water quality is good) and choose between keeping the trigger or puffer and sell the one you don't want to keep.

[NinjaEmperor]

cheers guys.

it definatly was the angel. caught him in the act this morning taking a chunk off the triggers nose!

took him back to retailer today.

the puffer has stopped being so active hes just sitting on the bottom of the QT. hope hell be ok his breathing is normal still.

Puffer size is about 4 half inches long
niger trigger is 2 half inches long
snowflake is 14 inches long

the angel was just a tiny bit bigger than the puffer

the injury to the bottom of the puffer looks like the skin has been pulled off over the spines. all the spines are still there - with evidence he has been puffed up too.