STARS AND STRIPES WITH STUFF STUCK ON HIM

[tamanderson]

Hey yall my stars and stripes Archie has sand stuck all over his belly. Otherwise he is normal but it looks kind of stringy. Has anyone else had this experience with them? We had kind of an incident the other day when he got stuck in a cave in the bottom of the tank and knocked over the whole rock shelf when he freaked out and tried to escape so I had to redo everything and I put him in a freshwater dip to calm him down while I reassembled all the destruction he caused but it did not come off so I am just wondering if this is something I need to be concerned about. He is in a 125 gallon, only him and some cleaners, one goby, some star fisn, snails, crabs, etc. Water parameters al check our fine. Nitrate tries to stay up on me and I have to keep on top of that.

Thanks.

[yunachin]

Nothing to worry about. It is just sand stuck to his slime coat.
Perhaps he is trying to make a fashion statement.

[edmlfc1]

He's probally a little stressed from the whole thing and is making extra slime coat causing the sand to stick to him and come off looking stringy. Elvis my stars & stripes does this sometimes. Just keep an eye on him, it should go away in a few days.

[tamanderson]

Thanks guys he is growing so big he thinks he can get in holes he can no longer get in and I thought everything was secure but..... he found a way to knock it all down. Then he was so freaked out he halfway puffed on me, just for a second and then went right back down. So I took him out of the tank which may have made it worse but everytime I was trying to stack rock here he would come getting in the middle of everything. He is like a toddler. So stubborn. I made all the caves a lot bigger and he seems to be chilling now. Not trying to wedge himself into tiny holes he used to sleep in. DUH (such a cutey though).

[yunachin]

My larger puffers have smaller puffer syndrome as I like to call it. They think they can (like your puffer) wedge into areas that are way too small for them. I even have ones that try to lay on Maxi-jet pumps and think they can fit comfortably.