The Puffer Forum

I bought a puffer from big Al's..

I asked them what type this puffer is but one person said its porcupine puffer

and the other person said it was 'ET puffer?'

I couldn't hear clearly since background noice was too loud

I'm quite sure that this puffer is not a porcupine puffer, since their needles are always

up whether or not they are puffing.

Not quite a Burrfish, or any boxfish since they can puff up, and has comparably thinner needles

than Burrfish...

Thanks,
Justin

Porcupine puffers and burrfishes are the same family: Diodontidae. Some species can erect all spines, some can erect none of their spines, and some can only erect a limited number of spines.

Please find out from where this puffer was imported.

There's one species Diodon nicthemerus (be careful with google images, many of the pictures shown there are wrong for this species), that has long slender spines, but it only lives in Southern Australia and would likely prefer sub-tropical to temperate temperatures instead of a tropical tank.

My second - more likely - guess would be that it is a sick Diodon holocanthus.

Corvus wrote:My second - more likely - guess would be that it is a sick Diodon holocanthus.

I'm with you on that one, Corvus!

http://www.fishbase.com/summary/Species ... p?id=12864

Looks sort of like that.

I agree, that fish is so emaciated the spines have nowhere to lay down. Please treat immediately for internal parasites or return it. Is it eating? Is it in an established tank?

Did he leave?

Ya just never know around here...

Shame.

Maybe he returned it.

Perhaps. It would help if they came back though.

Poor porcupine....