The Puffer Forum

Just found this video on YouTube


Hope he is ok, maybe he was testing himself?

i think it could only be fatal when it is really stressed out (provoking) or if it takes in air.

Possibly, I would be interested in seeing what PP or RTR think about this since they have had more experience with GSP's.

Practice puffs are rarely fatal as the puffer puffs slower than in a life or death situation

As long as the puffer isn't scared or threatened into puffing, practice away!

Don't get me wrong, you guys are really knowledgeable about fish and all. But something tells me that if being scared or threatened into puffing up was fatal to a puffer fish, that trait would have been lost somewhere in the evolutionary line. Puffers puff up as a defense mechanism to SAVE their life, not end it.

Textbook survival of the fittest. Being able to puff up when scared or threatened allowed them to survive, it didn't kill them.

Disclaimer. I'm not saying that you should go reach into your tank and chase your puffer around/grab at it until it puffs up, because obviously prolonged stress will have an effect on the animal's life expectancy. But I don't think that your puffer fish is going to drop dead from puffing up, even if it was scared of something.

Puffing with water from fear is not fatal. If it was, there's be a lot of dead puffers floating about, as this is their defense mechanism. It is stressful though.

Now puffing out of water with air, is another story. It is difficult for them to unpuff, they float upside down & can't eat.

In my experience, puffing with water can be fatal under the following conditions: captive porcupine puffers (D. holocanthus) fed a low quality diet (the puffing mechanism in tetraodontids and diodontids is different by the way). In this case the connective tissue can be so weak, it ruptures, during puffing, which ends in the death of the puffer.

Wouldn't have believed that myself until I found reliable reports from respected pro-fish-keepers and at last experienced it myself. In all cases it was D. holocanthus, the diet was poor (Krill, Mysis, no really meaty foods) and in the one I could examine my own the connective tissue was in a terrible condition.

Puffing with air can be fatal, too. Old story: can't get the air out => immense stress & compromised diving ability => severe skin damage and potentially stress related death.

The standard natural puffing with water can be expected to practically never be fatal on a healthy puffer.

Right, I just assumed we were talking about water. Obviously air is an entirely different story.

[dhrh

the puffing mechanism in tetraodontids and diodontids is different by the way

I would like to know more about this corvus, i used to thing it was the same mechanism in all puffers (regardless water type).

suvattii2012 wrote:It doesn't mean it can't kill them and if its about to get eaten and escapes then even if it dies after it still would be a handy trait to keep. I think a puffer can only puff so many times before it dies. Why does a puffer go toxic when its going to be dead anyway?

None of this is true.

RVS wrote:

the puffing mechanism in tetraodontids and diodontids is different by the way

I would like to know more about this corvus, i used to thing it was the same mechanism in all puffers (regardless water type).

It's not the water type, it's the family. In common English diodontids (porcupine puffers and burrfishes) are also called puffers, but they are a seperate family (some other languages are more precise here). Not only do their teeth differ but also their puffing sac. Tetraodontids ("true puffers") have a seperate sac to inflate (seperated form the stomach by a sphincter), diodontids use their stomach.

The basics are also briefly described in http://www.brown.edu/Departments/EEB/br ... jmorph.pdf This paper also briefly discusses how useful (or sometimes not) it is for a puffer to puff to escape inflation and how epidermis and underlying layers are organized. Puffing is not only to avoids predation, but also for social interaction.

Pufferpunk wrote:

suvattii2012 wrote:It doesn't mean it can't kill them and if its about to get eaten and escapes then even if it dies after it still would be a handy trait to keep. I think a puffer can only puff so many times before it dies. Why does a puffer go toxic when its going to be dead anyway?

None of this is true.

Your wrong. I just worded it wrong.

1. A puffer fish puffing up doesn't mean it can't kill them when they do it.
2. why would they lost the puffing trait when it can save there lives even if they die after from been bit.
3. who has tested to see how many times a puffer can inflate before it dies from realated reasons.
4. why would evoloution keep the toxic trait, what would be the point?

Some of us do try to differentiate between the burrfish and the "puffers" for exactly the reasons Corvus cites. They are not the same fish and do not have the same mechanisms or physiology. They are quite closely related though.

I know that immature puffers in captivity do practice puffing, generally while holding still in the water column. None that I have seen has suffered in any way from this. I do not understand why there would be or should be a limited or defined number of inflation episodes. I have too little experience with burrfish to comment on their captive issues or lack thereof. But I have no issues at all with any natural process being potentially higher risk for malnourished or otherwise poorly maintained specimens. I do know from personal experience that moderate to severe stunting in puffers does not inhibit voluntary puffing or detectably increase any risk from that unstressed practice. But I have to note that those fish were not malnourished, only stunted from lack of swimming space and current. Their diet and upkeep were both fine, they were only severely under-housed and lacked sufficient salinity.

Effective survival traits do tend to be conserved.