Puffer floating at the top of tank -help

[fishoholic]

I got a web burrfish puffer and I had him in my 230g FOWLR tank. Unfortunately the fish in there decided to all gang up and him and pick on him causing him to puff and me to freak out. Fortunately he unpuffed and hid in the rocks. However one of the aggressors found him and he started floating around the tank (un-puffed) and started get picked on and got stuck to a power head :sad: I managed to scoop him out in a container and put him in my reef tank. I turned off the two large powerheads in the tank and thankfully no one in there is picking on him but he keeps getting stuck to the side of the overflow box. He pulls himself off every now and then but eventually gets suck again. Not sure what to do but I'm worried about him :sad: Read something about trying to put the fish under a rock cave but the tank is to deep for me to reach the rocks very well and while I do have reef gloves he is covered in spikes and I'm not sure if handling him would stress him out more? But he's been stuck for awhile now so I think I'll try to move him under rocks if I can.

[fishoholic]

Was up late last night trying to make a cave for him to hide in and I got him under a rock area but stressed him out in the process and he didn't stay under the rock cave for long. Debated shutting off the return pump but the heater is in the sump and no heat to the tank all night would drop the temp to low.

Sadly I found him dead stuck to the side of the overflow box this morning :cry:

I honestly thought he'd be ok, since he was so different from the other fish (and no one picks on the toby puffer in my fowlr tank), that no one would pick on him either. My mean trigger chased him once when he first went into the tank but then everyone seemed to be getting along fine. Watched the tank closely all day, and all seemed well, until around 11pm that my snowflake eel decided to try to eat him :eek: I banged on the glass distracting the eel away from him which seemed to work and he was ok for a little while but shortly after that I saw him puff up and it was all downhill from there :cry: I feel sick and horrible about the whole thing and feel like an idiot for thinking he'd be fine in my fowlr :cry:

RIP spike

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii53/Laurie_Morin/Nikon%203100/DSC_0260-1.jpg

[Proteus]

Sorry to hear. Was this the puffer from MA

[fishoholic]

Sorry to hear. Was this the puffer from MA

No he was from AI. First really healthy one that was eating frozen (most have very concaved tummy's and refuse to eat) that I have seen for sale. Still feel beyond horrible for killing him :cry:

[Flash]

i'm pretty sure you didn't kill him! don't worry! puffers are so weird... like tangs... anything can cause stress...

[fishoholic]

i'm pretty sure you didn't kill him! don't worry! puffers are so weird... like tangs... anything can cause stress...

Ya I didn't intend to kill him (obviously) but I feel responsible for his death. I thought there might of been a chance that my mean trigger might go after him or maybe the toby puffer, but I never thought my eel would try to eat him or the freckleface hawkfish would suddenly relentlessly attack him :sad: Then moving him to the other tank, and trying to help, only to fail miserably, and make things worse, has me feeling upset and depressed today.

Also feel extremely guilty for not taking the time to set up a 10g tank for him to recover in (however at 12:30am that seemed like a daunting task) or to (at least) have put an extra heater in the reef tank and turned off the return pump so he wouldn't get sucked to the overflow (didn't do the later cause I was worried about setting the temp right on a new heater and was worried that only one powerhead wouldn't be enough flow for the rest of the fish) guessing the effort of trying to pull himself off the overflow all night stressed him out and killed him. Anyway I can't help but wonder that if I had of done either, if he'd still be alive right now :cry:

[Flash]

don't beat yourself up Laurie! we've all had the fish we thought we could save pass...

[bulletsworld]

No worries Laurie, its sad but happens to the best of us. We don't learn if we don't try , right?

Unfortunately there is very little to no info available on these cute little critters, the web burrfish puffer. Most species of these are deep water puffers. They are newest to purchasing and becoming more available as demand grows. You would think because they are a puffer and look like a porcupine puffer they would be able to go in a aggressive or FOWLR tank, however thats wrong. They can go with shrimp, however may nibble on snails & crabs though to small to kill them. In short...They are hard fish to keep.

They can't be stressed or they stop eating, and will get picked on by even a simple clown fish. They get super stressed in busy tanks and will hide. They are loner fish. They don't go good with other puffers, as I have experianced, they get bite and can suffer infection easy to their soft tissue (mostly the mouth) and will die. When they are about to die or hours before their spikes go completely white and their eyes go black marbles, losing there blue/green marble color. Then you know they are sick and dying. They are best by them selfs, until they are larger. Which makes them hard to keep. Since they sell them quite small. They even don't do well in pairs and will often kill the bigger one so they don't have to fight for food. The worse is they are the first to show parasites because of their soft tissue, no scales. If they get any disease they are hard to treat. Most products as they slime coat acts up as a defence and don't strive. No copper at all for these guys. These poor guys are parasite and fluke magnets. They can do hyposalinity and tub transfers well. Despite all that, these guys are cool little dudes. So fasinating creatures that will follow you around the tank like a dog.

Sounds like your guy got a air bubble, hence the floating. They puff to tell others to stay away but sometimes they catch an air bubble at the surface and then like sea horses they need a little help to rid it. Most times by simply exposing them to air does the trick to rid. I always ask the LFS to bag my puffy UNDER the water and please not expose to air for this reason. Your guy would easily got it from floating to the corner and sucking in an air bubble. When they puff they have no buoyancy, no control of where they float to, untill they deflate again. Smaller species, can't out swim the powerful powerheads.

Hope this helps. :mrgreen:

[fishoholic]

Thanks for the info Lee. What little info I did find on the Internet said they would be ok in aggressive fowlr tanks and since he was so healthy looking and eating and had been in QT at AI I took a chance. My eel tried to eat him then the small hawkfish attacked him which stressed him causing him to puff and get a bubble. I had been careful before hand during transfers not to expose him to any air so I was chocked when he puffed and got air into him. Wasn't sure how to get him to release it. Needless to say it's not easy to hold a spikey fish, he did unpuff but never quite got rid of the air in him. I was really upset that I lost him and will not be trying another unless I have a low flow peaceful tank for one.