Striped Burrfish...The Saga

[OrionGirl]

So, some of you may recall me mentioning that our burrfish had gone missing about 10 days ago. No body, no suspiciously fat tankmates, no signs of jumping...Just no fish. We searched high and low, watched for ammonia, and waited.

Doing a change today, a few rocks were moved, and lo and behold, there lie the abused body of the burrfish. It looked like he'd gotten stuck underneath some rocks. Sad. My boyfriend moved the rocks, reached in to remove the corpse. Jerked back---that thing MOVED. Ummm...You're kidding?

Nope. After at least a week stuck in there, no food, and little movement, tormented by a curly-cue anemone, the durned thing is still alive. He looks rough--you can see several stings from the anemone. He was stuck right above the inflow tube, and we're concerned that he may have a few bubbles--pretty sure actually--he's floating right about the surface. Every now and then he rallies his strength and dives to the bottom, but keeps floating back up.

We pulled him out into a hospital tank. We're hoping the air can work it's way out--not sure about piercing? I am pretty sure he can recover from the stings, as long as we can prevent infection. He can still inflate, and we'll see about some food later today. We added some Melafix ( I know, maybe it doesn't help at all, but maybe it does. Better than nothing, and I hate to treat with much else until we know he needs it). Open to any advice--this guy is one of our favorites, and we were saddened when he went astray.

 

[MonoSebaelover]

Amazing story Orion! I am having lots of trouble with a little Porcupine Puffer that I got from the store that I work at for free, since when he came in he looked really ruff and thought he would die within minutes after acclimation so told the wholesaler that he was a DOA. Well he survived and lasted out our store for two weeks until I realized how horribly he was doing. So I took him home and put him in my 46 gallon. Started feeding him Live Brine Shrimp (he was skinny and hadn't eaten much in terms of frozen that was offered at our store). He gained a little weight, until two weeks ago when our supplier was out of live brine due to the cold temps in Florida. He didn't get any live food that week, and this past week we got brine in on Tuesday and he ate Tuesday. In the meantime of two weeks ago I tried EVERYTHING on this puffer. I tried fresh scallops, frozen cocktail shrimp, all frozen foods I could think of that they would like, would not eat anything. So now he is extremely skinny and today a lfs in Boulder had brine so moved puffy to a 30XH, and jammed the tank (only him in the tank) full of brine and is finally eating again. I have never had nor have heard of a puffer this finiky. We have had some fish at our store with the Gas Bubble Disease (a Seahorse, Frogfish) and sadly we had to put them down. I know they sell kits to rid the gas bubbles but I don't know of actually popping them. I think its gotta be pretty painful for them though. Thats why we opted to put them down rather than try to pop them. He might be able to rid them himself though. Who knows but hope he does well!

 

[agilis]

I wonder how the fish got stuck in the first place. Very small burrfish can get caught by strong suction, but larger ones should be able to deal with most problems. Their spines are fairly soft, so getting stuck is an unusual situation. I have noticed that sick or seriously distressed burrfish sometime intentionally wedge themselves into a narrow space.

I have always had a soft spot for striped burrfish, sometimes called spiney boxfish ( C. Shoepfi). I have one now that I caught last summer when it was very tiny, less than an inch long. It's now about 2 !/2 inches, and eats anything, including Hikari pellets and snails that I remove from my fw aquarium. I have found that smaller burrfish, under 2 inches, adjust to aquarium life much better than big ones, and spend less time swimming up and down against the glass.

Burrfish are very vulnerable to bacterial infections. If you have an isolation tank, I would try a good antibiotic treatment. Inflating is a sign of distress, and inflating with air should never be allowed to happen. Burrfish have high metabolic rates, and will become malnourished relatively rapidly.

Good luck with your pet.

 

[VoodooChild]

For what it's worth, I've had alot of luck with Mela-fix with my FW fish and tears and scrapes. I hope he pulls through...normally I'd tell customers to add some salt to their water to prevent fungus, but I suppose that this is different.