The Puffer Forum

Hello all, haven't made many posts on here recently what with moving house / work and the usual daily stuff that we all have to do!! But i wanted to post this to hopefully help someone to not go through the same as i just have.....
I recently went to a fish store near me, And could not believe my eyes...they had 2 striped burrfish!!! One of my all time favorite fish, and one of them was about one and a half inches long so he was the cutest thing you ever seen. That was it i had to have him, so sure enough took the little guy home with me. He was put in my quarantine tank as i wanted him to settle and to get him eating frozen mussel etc before adding to main tank as i know these can be quite fussy eaters. Things seem really good, and he settles in and starts eating not a problem. I wake up one day and he has a lump on the underside of him, and the lump moved, as in if he swam up it went to bottom of him but if he was flat it evened out in the middle of him. Never seen this before so not sure what it is?? The following day he still has lump which looks slightly bigger and he also has white spot now, So im real worried for the little guy. I gave him a fresh water dip to try and kill the white spot off a bit and he seemed to chirp up a bit but still has lump. The following day things not looking good at all, so i left all tank lights off and didnt interfere with the tank at all, not even fresh water dips or anything as i really didnt want to stress the little guy out anymore until he seemed a bit stronger. Following morning i got up and as always the first thing i do is go check on the little guy and sadly he had died . I was gutted like you wouldn't believe.

I kind of decided that was it for me and i would just carry on with what i had fish wise for now. But i needed to go to the fish shop again to get cockle so went down there that day. Could not believe it but the other burrfish was still there!! I Spoke to the shop owner and he said he'd sort it out for me because of the loss of the other, so done me a good deal. I Looked the fish over and he seemed to be okay from what i could tell. So again back in the quarantine tank he goes and seems okay for about 2 days, apart from the fact he would not eat.....at all......even if i waved food in his face he just swam into it and past it! Anyways to cut a long story short, I'm starting to worry about the feeding thing, and literally within a day and a half the fish went from looking like a seemingly okay fish to one of the saddest sights you have seen. I came down and he's sitting down behind a rock not looking great at all. I did give him a fresh water dip but not sure if this was good or bad for him, but i have to confess, i knew he would die, it was just a matter of when. But i did not want to kill the little one, as i couldnt bring myself to do it, so i had to sit and watch him go which was just horrible.
Before people pipe up about whether i am expreienced enough to keep these fish, i have kept numerous puffers, freshwater, brackish and marine. I have a 18" mbu that i have raised from when he was about 2", I have a dog faced puffer i saved from the fish store who comes to see everyone who sits near the tank, I have a ceylon i saved from the store which was literally hanging by a thread on whether he would live or die who is now a happy fat little thing, I keep eels, lionfish, scorpionfish etc....i could go on but i just want people to know its not like i have not kept anything like this before.

The reason for my post is i personally have come to the conclusion that these guys dont make for good aquarium pets, And i just want to save someone the stress i have been through over the last few days. Yes i know i should not have bought the second one but i figured i just had a bad deal with the first and this one would be okay. Wrong!!

I have also come to the conclusion that i will NEVER, EVER EVER EVER buy one of these again....I dont care how cute they look or how healthy or friendly they seem, i will walk away with the memory of how bad this experience was.

If anyone has had a good experience with these then i have to take my hat off to you. I have never seen a fish go downhill so so quick before. I'm guessing from what i have read that these guys are all wild caught and infested with parasites etc and being there so sensetive there not exactly the easiest fish to treat for this. I dont know i may be wrong.

The next time you see one of these and you can't believe your luck, please give 2 seconds to think about wether its worth the risk of losing them or not............and you could save yourself the stress i went through.....

i'm sorry for your experience with this fish.....
but then again i thank you for sharing your story with us too....

I'm not sure but I think Myaj has one. She said she has to treat her often for IP's. I had the same bad luck with a porc. I waited a month while the lfs qt the porc went the next day to buy it and found out it died the day before. The second time I waited a month went in the next day to buy it and it was dying, had the same thing the first one had. I decided to buy one from another store. After qt, got it to start eating, everything looked good, she got cloudy eyes. I moved her back to qt, fought this for a few months, fw dips, daily 100% water changes, hand feeding etc. She passed away. I will never get another porc. And they are suppose to be easy to keep. Now I'm having trouble with the rest of my puffers and I'm also going a little nuts. I know excatly how you feel. My heart totally goes out to you. I'm starting to wonder if there is something in the tap water that's causing my problems right now. Or maybe I'm just cursed!
I'm so sorry for your loss.

It's sad to hear that even an experienced pufferkeeper like yourself can't keep this species alive, as there are so many FS in all the stores I visit. (Same thing with the T ocellatus, I'm afraid, although I've yet to see one around here.) Thank you for sharing your experience.

my main reason for sharing this story is because i know most people will fall for them if they see them in the store, as i did, they give you a look as if to say " take me home please!! ". Although i did have a real bad few days luck wise i have to say that my luck has changed slightly. I went to another store i use and they had a radiata lionfish ( my favorite ). I have one already but i had another tank with just my leaffish in and wanted another scorpion/lion to go in with him so i can have the "VENOM" tank!! ha ha ha

So i am now the proud owner of 2 of this species. Also he was maked up at £40 being rarer type, and was in the tank with dwarf lionfish for £25 so i called the kid over to serve me and when i paid he took the wrong ticket so i got him for the £25 instead!!
Now thats what i call a bargain, He settling in nicely and was out swimming about when all the moonlights were on last night so i got high hopes. It would be nice to sex them both aswell so i could have a go at breeding them maybe?? Its something i might look into.

oh and one more thing.....sorry to go on and on....i had the plumber round this morning to fit water meter, and when he came in he see my mbu and turned to my girlfriend and said " i love him, he's really cool, he's a pirhana isnt he!!!?? " and there was me thinking all this time he was a puffer!!?? ha ha ha ha........ can you imagine how pissed off my mbu would be if he got called a pirhana.....couldnt think of a more boring fish to keep!!

maybe your mbu does a good piranha impression..

Sad about your burrs.. i went through a similar thing. and only once... and like you.. never again.

Congrats on your new fish. I hope it goes well for you.

I was warned before I bought my Burr that they are notorious for internal parasites and not eating in captivity.

One tip I was given was absolutely do NOT buy one unless you can witness it eating in the store.

My burr was eating in the store (live feeders), and I am pretty experienced with treating for IP's (IMO) so I took the plunge. Thankfully, my girl was more than willing to eat from the first hour she was home, and while she is a picky eater, she does eat.

Yes, she definately needs to be dewormed every few months though.. nothing I've tried has completely cleared up everything, and after a few months she starts getting skinny and white poo's again. I just ordered some GelTek Ultra Cure though, and I'm hoping that does a better job.. maybe she'll eat more of it (its always been a struggle to get meds into her due to the taste and her picky eating habits).


It sounds like that first one you had had a nematode that was active... in all honesty, there was probably no way to save it. If you treat for IP's, it will kill the nematode(s) and they will die inside the body and poison the fish. They are in the skin and tissue, not the internal organs, so the fish can't purge them like they do with most parasites. Nematodes can go dormant when a fish is happy and healthy (I have a figure 8 with them), and a parasite infested burrfish unwilling to eat in captivity will unfortunately never be happy or healthy.. so if one thing doesn't kill it, the other will.

I'm sorry you had such bad experiences.. Mine has been excellent, but like i said, I was lucky enough to find one that was willing to eat. Most of the time they are already too far gone to eat by the time you see them in the stores. But if you ever are tempted again.. Paris can NOT resist a snail, ever, she'll turn up her nose at shrimp, scallops, nightcrawlers.. but never a snail! Keep that in mind!

What kind of snail?

i can safely say i have learned my lesson from this, and definitely wouldn't buy again, even if there eating in the store in front of me i'm going to have to walk away. Sometimes you have to admit defeat and i'm waving my white flag on this one!!! I think i'll stick to what i know in future to save myself the stress!! I just wanted to warn any new comers of this really, that was the main reason for the post. Like i said i consider myself a fairly knowledgable puffer/fish keeper so a newbie don't have a hope in hell in keeping one of them guys alive!

Yes, they are definately a tougher fish to keep alive.

We really need to gather up some photos of the few burr's people on here have kept and get them an entry in the Pufferpedia, so we can have some of this info more readily available. Its been on my "to do" list for quite a while and I just can't get around to it.

Jeni, Paris will go nuts over any snail, but I usually gave her Ramshorns since they are bigger. The day I brought her home, there were a couple empty ramshorn shells floating around in her tank (they must have been stuck under the lip and came loose when I refilled it) and she immediately attacked them.. was even trying to get them through the bag!

that is sad. im sorry they passed.

Don't be so quick to give FW dips, they are very stressful, and it sounds like neither of them needed it.