The Puffer Forum

Hi all, Twice I've written a two page update, which was lost when the forum asked me to log in again again when I hit the post button. I can only take so much one finger typing on a IPad in a day so our story will have to wait. Regardless, we will be puffer owners again in about 2 weeks. Christmas b...

Losing fish sucks. Sorry to hear this.
-Robert

He got ich 2 days after we quit the initial quinine, which we used for 3 days. Water quality is near perfect across the board. We restarted the quinine, vitamins, and lights out (light breaks down quinine). Though Meridian (the name we gave him) has a moderate case of ich, the 3 Damsels we used for ...

Thanks, all. :D Rest assured we know how big Map Puffers get. :D For this fish, we didn't use a QT because he'll be living alone. The store had him in copper the last two weeks. This, combined with the stress of moving has probably thrashed his immune system. We're treating the tank with a three day...

Yesterday we went to our LFS and foud that the Arothron stellatus, which we declined to buy two weeks earlier over the phone, was actually an Arothron mappa. He we were instantly in love with this little 2.5" fish, so we plopped down $79.00 and headed home with him. We had a 50 gallon tank at h...

If you can buy an appropriate sized Ikea coffee table on Craig's List and start work on the other stuff right away, maybe you'll be ready to go sometime next week.
-Robert

A well constructed older building such as you described can be extremely sturdy compared to today's construction, but this is far from guaranteed. If your building's roof sags; if floors are springy in the middle, are uneven or sag slightly; or if plaster walls or ceilings have a number of long crac...

We leave the lid open frequently. Our porcupine and stars and stripes have never shown any inclination toward jumping. Egg crate is an 11/16 inch square grid of stiff white plastic about 5/16 inch thick. It's often used to make home made sump/wet dry filters. I also use it to make under gravel filte...

Happy_Puffer wrote:she likes to play hide and seek.

I know it's a bit off topic, but how does a fish play hide and seek?
-curious (Robert)

Can inverts withstand a hyposalinity treatment? No. Internally they have a salinity near that of the water and can't osmoregulate like fish. To a point, marine fish even benefit from hyposalinity because it reduces osmotic potentials and the reduced salt increases the oxygen carrying capacity of th...

Sorry to hear you lost a fish. As to where the infection came from some possibilities are: - live marine foods - new live rock (even from fishless tanks) - new inverts. - nets siphon tubing, buckets and other hardware used with another marine tank for water changes. - Hands and arms placed in anothe...

She really is very light colored like in the photo. What especially caught our eye was the orange and yellow pattern on her back. We've never seen a poofer like her before.

The General Cure we used expires in 8/2010, so it was definitely fresh. We use Jungles' Parasite Guard on virtually all our non-Marine puffers while they are in the QT. I agree, Nick, the Jungle tabs would be a good alternative to API's General Cure for treatment of the problem Bazil323 describes. W...

Thanks, Rocco, I think we will. :) Both Jazzy and Mr. Busy are cute as can be, but Jazzy is the cutest of all our puffers. She's mostly a creamy white, has erect spines covering her entire body like a pincushion, her eyes are enormous, and she looks at visitors with her eyes straight ahead like head...

Nick, with Mr. Busy (the severely emaciated Lined Burrfish we got last month) what you describe with swallowing problems was exactly the problem this poor fish had. He would chew food over and over and then spit out most or all of it. He didn't cough, but the swallowing problem sounds similar to wha...