Puffed Up Puffers

In response to a question in "Oddballs", here are a couple pics I have of Puffed up Puffers.

1. Skinner (my male T. cutcutia) guarding a clutch of eggs from his mate.

2. another shot of Skinner

Awesome shots

DD

A pic. of C. asellus, not my fish, but a good pic, not a good practice. You should NEVER do this with any puffer

one more of Skinner

Great picture!

Skinners a lovely puffer!

Thanks, he is a charmer, unfortunately he is also a viscous little sod that kills anything else in his tank, including his mate

i thought puffer fish died if you took them out of water?

not a good practise i know but i thought it was fatal to them?

Thats real cool. I've never seen one of those puffed up!

Francis.

Great pictures Pufferpack. Skinner is so cute!
Was the spawn succesful? did you get surviving fry?

If no one minds, I'll add a couple of my own to this thread.

First here's Titch who we think is a Brown Puffer tetraodon turgidus semi-puffing over a territory dispute.



And of course I'm sure eveyone must have already seen Martha, our Fahaka Puffer tetraodon lineatus
who occasionaly puffs to get our attention when she wants something.

SirMinion I had seen that picture before and yet it still amazes me!
I would love a puffer! But space is an issue.
They have little figure eights in my LFS and they say community......... why don't I believe them?!?!?!?

That is one amazing fahaka puffer SirMinion

Great pics Sir.M. Martha always amazes me with her beauty. Unfortunately I was unable to raise any of the fry from the 4 clutches that actually hatched, then Skinner went psycho while I was on holiday and killed off his mate Chubbs.
I am just finishing moving out to the countryside (all 10 tanks....what fun ) so I think I'll start looking around to see if I can find him another girly to try a serious attempt at breeding them rather than just letting nature take it's course like I did last time.

edit:

i thought puffer fish died if you took them out of water?

not a good practise i know but i thought it was fatal to them?

Click to expand...

There is a chance that it could be fatal, this is due to the way puffers puff up. While in the water puffers gulp up massive amounts of water (relative to their normal size) and expand the pleats in their bodys to look larger and more fierce, but if removed from water the puffer may gulp in air to try and puff up. This air can get trapped inside their stomaches causing them to have great diffuculty functioning normally in the water, and if left untreated could eventually kill them. If this occurs the puffers keeper may be forced to "burp" their puffer in order to help them expell the trapped air.
Another problem that has actually happened to a Fahaka owner here in Calgary is that while transferring his fish to another tank he exposed it to the air and the Fahaka puffed up so hard that it actually belw a hole in it's back. I'm not sure whether there was an old injury that made that spot particularly weak, but I suspect that with the air being a thinner medium than water, that the Fahaka took in too much in 1 shot and had a blow out.

Here is the post from the Fahaka owner: Fahaka Blow Out

SirMinion said:

Great pictures Pufferpack. Skinner is so cute!
Was the spawn succesful? did you get surviving fry?

If no one minds, I'll add a couple of my own to this thread.

First here's Titch who we think is a Brown Puffer tetraodon turgidus semi-puffing over a territory dispute.

And of course I'm sure eveyone must have already seen Martha, our Fahaka Puffer tetraodon lineatus
who occasionaly puffs to get our attention when she wants something.

[snapback]889655[/snapback]​

Click to expand...

Oh my God I love that fish, it is stunning why do they puff up like that for??

Pufferpack said:

... Fahaka puffed up so hard that it actually belw a hole in it's back. I'm not sure whether there was an old injury that made that spot particularly weak, but I suspect that with the air being a thinner medium than water, that the Fahaka took in too much in 1 shot and had a blow out.

Here is the post from the Fahaka owner: Fahaka Blow Out

[snapback]889709[/snapback]​

Click to expand...

Good God! and the fish survived!

..And THAT, Boys and Girls, is why you never tank a puffer out of water!
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Angel Lady said:

Oh my God I love that fish, it is stunning why do they puff up like that for??

[snapback]889714[/snapback]​

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By puffing, the fish makes its self look much bigger for three main reasons:

1. To make a predator think it's too big to handle
2. To make it harder for a predator to swallow it
3. To appear more intimidating to rival puffers in territory or mating disputes (ever see an angry or frightened cat fluff up to make its self look bigger? same principle)