The Puffer Forum

just curious but does anyone have expeirences with boxfish.

always tempted but they get HUGE and i worry about them not only poisoning and killing my fish, but also killing off my £££££ worth of live rock.

Damn them for being so cute.

They get to be pretty large and can kill an entire tank easy.
Best left in the ocean or single specimen tank IMO.

yeah they can get large but some species like the blue spotted boxfish cant get only 8 inches.

That'd probablly be better, keep it in a small tank by itself and you won''t risk killing your whole tank.

yeah. theyre really cool but the males of the species get really expensive.

A guy on m yother forum had a huge tank with a A.stellatus, snowflake eel, a triggerfish and then bought a box fish. He coame downstair two days in and the whole tank was wiped out

A question though does the poisin killy the bacteria and live rock?

Yeah it kills everything.
Most people who keep them keep them with very docile fish. The Coney Island aquarium had a 5 inch cowfish in with seahorses with no problems (aggression wise that I could tell and I did watch it for several minutes)

man. do u know what kind of triggerfish it was.

no sorry, but it was gorgeous, I think he had a dogface puffer in there too much against my advice too. he keeps tankbusters and has a huge FW with Redtail Catfish, pacus and tiger shovelnose catfish. His Marineventure was a bit of a rush I think and the box fish was an impulse buy

Boxfish can also release their poison willingly if stressed or attacked. The bad thing is they are not immune, so while they can swim away in the sea, they will die inhaling their own poison in aquariums. Their poison is much more water soluble than the stronger puffer toxins, so even if the boxfish poison is weaker it can kill all fish in a tank easily. I'm surprised the Snowflake died, morays are immune to a lot of organic poisons, I've seen morays eat toxic puffers without problems and further consequences (as long as they don't puff, e.g. because the eel penetrated the skin and organs of the puffer).

As far as I know Ostracitoxine (alternative name: Pahutoxin) kills fish by hemolysis. My guess would be it does not kill the bacteria needed for filtration. But I do not know for sure. If it does, can simply be checked by measuring ammonia and nitrite after the death of the boxfish. When all the bacteria die significant spikes should be measurable.

Thanks for that Corvus, you are a star

wow. you knopw your facts.

That's why he's a Mentor here!

Thanks, but this is just information I found in a book on toxins from the reefs and a scientific paper on box fish poison, no big deal. I thought morays would survive eating box fish, but the story above indicates that further research may be needed.