The Puffer Forum

Tihsho wrote:Good idea bred, when your done testing tell us your results. lol.

Haha. I wish!
The only person I know around here with enough spare tanks and experience to do the job has also sworn off BW and SW...

Well, see if ya can borrow some of his tanks?

J/K...unless you really feel like asking.

There is not such thing as a spare tank. There may be certain tanks out of service at any given time, but none are spare. I did once lend a 55 to my favorite niece. Immediately after she returned it, I gave it away.

As I recall, I offered to take some of RTR's extra tanks off his hands a few months ago (hauled away at no cost to him of course) and his reply was something along the lines of "As soon as you pry my cold dead fingers off of the glass." I quickly recinded the offer.

Yep, I suspect that my son is plotting his inheritance already...

Need a tattooed daughter?

Nah...I still like my old suggestion of getting buried in your 6' tank, a la Russian mafia/businessman in his prized Mercedes. That way you'll never be parted from a tank.
Pami.

I'm still leaning towards the "imbalance in their diet" idea. That would explain why they just up and die after four months or so. Whatever it is from their homelands that they can't get here.

Is iodine possible if they eat a lot of shellfish?

Iodine's present in most synthetic salt mixes, though, so they'd be getting some. Unless "some" isn't enough.
We can assume it's not despair and suicide by their own toxins, as, as far as we know, they don't do sophisticated self awareness or read Schopenhauer, so it's gotta be chemical.
Could it be something to do with tap water...fluorine/lead/copper/whatever else?
Pami.

When I tried them it was back in my SW days, so I was using RODI for prep, so not tap water in the case of my fish.

I was not adding iodide to the tanks beyond what was in the marine mix, but as their diet was largely seafood, they had to get some that way.

RE tank burial: I intend to be cremated (the family cemetary is full, unless you want to be stacked). Besides, I'm 6'3". I don't like the idea of being cramped, even if I'm no longer present. Seems a waste of a tank to me anyway... While I rarely frighten small children, I am neither Sleeping Beauty nor Eva Peron. I think the concept of a glass coffin somehow escapes me, or more accurately, curls my toes.

A tattooed daughter would fit right into this slightly eccentric family. Just so long as she remembers that Father Knows Best...

I've always fancied a Tibetan Buddhist style sky burial myself....there is something wrong about taking up loads of space in the earth and not having your molecules going back into the environment for hundreds of years...and even then you're leaching formaldehyde...feed me to the birdies.
Pami.

How about *two* tattooed daughters?


Hell, you could adopt a whole family, I'll bet

I have said this about three times in the old forum, but I have a T. occelatus. (My good friend has it now, but I had him for about 7 years, and shes had him now for about four. He is in very low brackish, 1.006ish. Been that way for years and years. I hate to toot my own horn, but I will since I guess I am offically the only one that can keep one alive. (and my friend). But.... My therory is that they just simply are not 'hardy' anymore. one from 11 years ago is completly different from one now. Who knows what those fish go through before they get to us. I have not seen a healthy one since. I work in a fish store... over the years, I have only seen maybe two come in, and they were both doomed. Very sickly by the time they even got to the store.

Pamela wrote:I've always fancied a Tibetan Buddhist style sky burial myself....

http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/F ... burial.htm

( <-- not embarrased, but somewhat "put off")

I dunno if I could stomach that, but it does make sense once I get past the culture shock.

Vive la difference!

I remember reading an article in the scientific press comparing the level of tetrodotoxin in wild and captive-bred fugus. Apparently the captive bred puffers lacked (or nearly lacked) the poison. The research was being done in Japan (there was obvious interest in the culinary community).

I've done a google search but can't find the original article -- I believe I originally read it in New Scientist.

I would lean towards Mandycat's suggestion of poor shipping / handling... perhaps coupled with inadequate food/nutrition. cf Moorish idols which cannot be kept in captivity for prolonged periods.