The Puffer Forum

Just had a nice trip to the doctors for an unusual reason. I was cleaning my fish tank which houses Esau my baileyi puffer, and he lunged at me. I've had him 2.5 years now and he's never gone for me. He usually just follows my hand round the tank. But anyway he missed me and I pushed him away. I carried on cleaning and he snuck up on me and got me this time. Well he got me on the tip of my middle finger and sliced under my nail, doing his little wriggle he normally does to dead feeder fish, getting a bit of flesh Lots of blood!

Just back from the doctors where they didnt have a clue what to do and ended up ringing the dept. of poisons (they are poisonous in their skin, not teeth as I'm sure you know! I did tell them I'd be dead by now if I was poisoned!) and nurse came back in the room 20 mins later saying it's OK I can patch you up now! Bout time! But yeah Long story short don't mess with puffers! I have a nice big bandage on my middle finger now that its finally stopped bleeding

The fish in question (Esau)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln-W5zsD ... annel_page - vid has been posted before...

ouch. ouch. and ouch. i hope it heals fine.

Yikes! You'll have to watch him now - he's got a taste for human blood!!!

My Ceylon is a biter, too - when I first got him, it was cute feeding him by hand. But now he's much, much bigger and a while ago he started going for my fingers instead of the food - and even though he's only about 3.5", it hurts quite a bit when he gets me. So now Daddy drops the food in.

Yeah it may be just that he was hungry as he hadn't eaten this week, and barely touched his fish last week. Took 5 this morning though and is now sitting in his little crevice. Tweesers it is from now on though.

Ouch a few of my monsters have bitten me before, drew blood but no serious damage as of yet.

I do not look forward to the day my puffs are big and scary.

I worry about my congo biting - he is getting more aggressive. Only was bit by Junior- 1.5in GSP- no blood but when he is full grow will have to watch him too.

when the tips of my fingers are in ziggy's tank he attacks with lightning speed and bites me like 5 times in 1 second, luckily he's to small to do damage.
but if my whole hand is in the tank he cowers like a big wuss

Owwie! I hope he doesn't crave the taste of your fingers now..... Hope your wound gets better soon.

Haha, ouch! Abe used to try to sneak up on me, but I just ball my hand into a fist and rush it towards him. He usually goes running off.

He did try to bite me once when he was younger, but I believe I got him back by lightly flicking him. Sounds mean, I know, but the sucker tried to eat me; a little warning was warranted, in my opinion. ^_^ He's over 4 inches now, though, and he cowers whenever I go into the tank (I don't put my hand in the tank too often anyways). He still eats snails off my hand, but he usually just gets fed half of a clam instead of snails (pond snails don't grow nearly quick enough, and he has to eat like 100 just to be full).