Puffer Health risks?

[Pissed Off Pufferfish]

Rock on, Squee! You sound like my kinda peeps. Any chance you gotta lonely little lady Puffer for me? My last girlfriend was captured "Finding Nemo" style... sniff sniff.

 

[squee!]

Someone's kid at a party I was having made one of my spotted puffers do that when I wasn't looking. I was pi$$ed. (he also fed them hot dogs, which lead to a tank disaster, but that's a different story. Little @#&$^@!).

AGH! What a little $#!7!
Green Spotteds are one of my favorite brackish puffers, though I don't have any. Hot dogs? What a mess.

Rock on, Squee! You sound like my kinda peeps. Any chance you gotta lonely little lady Puffer for me? My last girlfriend was captured "Finding Nemo" style... sniff sniff.

Sorry, the puffers I have I am not sure how to sex without anesthetising them (and I am not about to do that). I suppose you could always come over sometime, make some light conversation with some of them, and see where that gets you.

 

[SueMermaid]

No, no, no. You wait till they have to pee, and watch them to see which outhouse they go into.

Yeah, hot dogs. It was a greasy mess. Apparently the puffers liked it though, cause they ate themselves into oblivion. Not really, they fared fine, but I lost my big beautiful pair of Mono Argentus.

 

[HaoleDiver]

Well, this has turned into an interesting thread. It was kind of annoying in Cozumel, because our DM did **** like that, he puffed puffers, and corralled turtles for us to see. Most of us on the trip were at least DMCs, so most of us over the course of our diving lives had seen puffed puffers naturally, and turtles, so we kept getting pissed that he was doing all of this to show us. I think he figured it out after the first 2 days though.

 

[Kim]

<snip>And DON'T CALL ME FUGU!!

Yes - I suppose you can't help it that you just taste SOOOOO good! I love fugu season! (However - I don't puff them just for fun)

 

[badassbill]

Folks...I've had puffers on and off for about 14 years in an aquarium. To say they only have a limited amount of times to puff up is not only ill-logical, but false. Have I made puffers puff up on purpose? Sure...maybe twice in 10 years (I did a lot of stupid stuff in college). I will sometimes walk into an empty room and find them puffed up...just "stretching". Is it wrong for a diver to harass one till it puffs up...probably. Does it hurt them? No...puffers are one of the hardiest fish in the ocean. It takes a lot more than stress to kill them and anyone in the aquarium field will tell you they have great personalities.
The bottom line is...there are a lot worse things that could happen to a puffer than someone making it puff. Let's move on...

 

[GoBlue!]

Speaking as a biologist and an active puffer keeper (fishkeeping is one of my passions, and I have 10 pufferfish all together), when people make pufferfish puff up it pisses me off. I have never heard of a puffer having a limited amount of times that it can invoke it's defense mechanism, but obviously it is a stressful event for the fish. I have seen people in pet stores do it to show to potential buyers, and that pisses me off more. What do they want to do? sell a fish to people who will just torment it? I equate molesting a pufferfish until it puffs up to someone harrassing your pet until it whimpers and runs away and hides. Not cool. Not cool at all.

And you know that the impressed frat boys who then buy the little guy take it home & make it puff up constantly. If the thing died after 3 puffs, I'm thinking the pet store would be getting a lot of angry phone calls & this wouldn't be such a mystery.

(For the record, I've never puffed a puffer, but have seen a puffer puffed. )

Jim

 

[SHARKBAIT94]

ok This is thread i can chime in on.
I have two salt water tanks three really two in my house and one in my office and all three have puffers. My 150 gallon has one and just about every time I stick my squeegee and clean the class or clean the bottom he puffs up despite the fact that I am no were near him. If that’s the case that they can only do this so many times before passing on then I really lucked out with him or her and when I added my gold tail eel he puffed up for a long time. The only thing I did notice is that after he is done puffing up he will not eat for a day or so (normally a really good appetite loves his clam cubes) I have had all three for a couple of years maybe even 3 yrs now. So I find this a little hard to believe that they can only do this a couple of times in their entire life spanned . Just my two cents with my experience with puffers.