Never give up on your puffer!
Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 6:34 am
I came downstairs this morning to find my green spotted had jumped out of the tank during the night. I don’t know what time but the cat had kindly picked him up from behind the sofa (where I would never have found him until he started to smell) and made a nest for him on my fleece jacket.
He was stone-cold, inflated with air, covered in cat hair and very dead looking. I bagged him up and was about to put him the freezer to store until bin-day when I remembered reading on here about someone who had a puffer jump out of a tank and they later found him behind their freezer – many hours after jumping.
With this in mind I thought – what the heck – it’s worth a try and filled a bowl with water from the tank. A puffer floating belly-up in a bowl is not a nice sight but I thought I would at least get the air out of him before putting him in the bag again. A few giant puffer belches later (has to be one of the most revolting noises I have heard in a long time) I noticed – to my complete disbelief – that his lips moved a touch. Spurred on by this I continued to rub his belly and within a minute his fins had started moving. Ten seconds later he had righted himself, burped out the remaining air and was doing laps of the bowl.
Not quite believing what had just happened I filled a bucket with tank water, whacked in a heater and transferred him over (minus some of the cat hair and dust now covering the surface of the water).
I am still in disbelief that he looked so…dead!...and when I left for work this morning was swimming around a bucket. Fingers crossed he pulls through but I’m not getting my hopes up just incase.
Thanks also to the cat – without which I wouldn’t have found the puffer had jumped out of the tank until coming back from work! (and for not treating him like a cat toy!)
It just goes to show – it is never too late to try and save your carpet-surfing puffer!
He was stone-cold, inflated with air, covered in cat hair and very dead looking. I bagged him up and was about to put him the freezer to store until bin-day when I remembered reading on here about someone who had a puffer jump out of a tank and they later found him behind their freezer – many hours after jumping.
With this in mind I thought – what the heck – it’s worth a try and filled a bowl with water from the tank. A puffer floating belly-up in a bowl is not a nice sight but I thought I would at least get the air out of him before putting him in the bag again. A few giant puffer belches later (has to be one of the most revolting noises I have heard in a long time) I noticed – to my complete disbelief – that his lips moved a touch. Spurred on by this I continued to rub his belly and within a minute his fins had started moving. Ten seconds later he had righted himself, burped out the remaining air and was doing laps of the bowl.
Not quite believing what had just happened I filled a bucket with tank water, whacked in a heater and transferred him over (minus some of the cat hair and dust now covering the surface of the water).
I am still in disbelief that he looked so…dead!...and when I left for work this morning was swimming around a bucket. Fingers crossed he pulls through but I’m not getting my hopes up just incase.
Thanks also to the cat – without which I wouldn’t have found the puffer had jumped out of the tank until coming back from work! (and for not treating him like a cat toy!)
It just goes to show – it is never too late to try and save your carpet-surfing puffer!
I'm so glad ur puff is ok
Awesome! I hope he's ok when you get home. 
