Porcupine Puffer died, Why?

[playtime]

I hope someone has an answer for me. Friday night, after feeding time, I noticed that Hootey my porcupine puffer was breathing hard but thought it was due to the excitement of feeding. Saturday morning He looked worse, breathing harder and not swimming well at all. Did a quick water test and everything was fine. A quick assesment of him went as followed: clear eyes, no spots or leasions on his fins or body, no other signs of distress. After about an hour, he puffed up and then died. I don't understand it at all. Up until then he ate fine, swam fine, and looked great. Water quality went as followed: Salinity 1.023, ph 8.3, temp 78, amonia .025, nitrite 0, nitrate 0. He never appeared sick until friday night with the labored breathing. The only other fish is a dwarf lionfish that is the same size as he and they get along fine. Never showing aggression towards each other. Very peaceful together. I am so sad. I really loved my little Hootey. I just don't understand what went wrong.
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[wickedwes]

sorry to hear about your loss. i love puffers. i need a little more info. how long have you had him and how big is he? what were you feeding him? my little guy sometimes eats to fast and has a problem. he has also swam in front of the output to one of my powerheads with his mouth open and i think the rush of water through his mouth has caused the similar symptoms that you described before he died. mine seems to breath heavy and sit in the back of the corner of the tank not moving too much for a little while. he always seems to get better though.

 

[playtime]

Well, I have had him for a few weeks but the lfs kept him for me for about two weeks before I purchased him. He was about 3-4 inches long. I was feeding him mysis and squid. If I had poor water quality or he hadn't been eating and acting strange, I wouldn't be so shocked. He was perfect until friday night and even then, I wasn't alarmed because he had just eaten.
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[heath]

aw- sorry for your loss playtime
well the indicator seems to be hootey's dinner-
how much did you feed him? they are voracious critters and their appetites are muchmuchmuch bigger then they are. they will eat until they burst.
mine too would sink to the bottom when i first got him after feeding. i immediately
started feeding less. they should still be hunting and scavenging for food after a meal, not laying on the ground all fat and full, like us at thanksgiving.
your h20 quality is OK, the ammo should be 0, but i don't think that this is your culprit.
hth some, also might wanna do a water change- when all else fails, to help get the ammo in check for your lionfish.
heath

 

[playtime]

As you can tell by my quick reply, I really want to get to the bottom of this. I was feeding about 1/2 to 3/4 cube of frozen either mysis or squid every other day. I know that cant be too much. I feed them by hand so I know about how much each one is getting. I did a small water change and amo is back to 0. Lionfish (Metro) is looking great. No labored breathing. Is it odd that Hootey puffed just before he died? Is that a natural response? Lionfish wasn't even close to him when he did it so he wasn't beeing picked on at all. I did some reading and am thinking about bacterial infection but the water quality is fine. AWWWWWWW!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!! This is so frustrating.
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[pufferlover]

Just a guess on my part but I have a feeling the Lion may have zapped your Puff. If he was fine till that night and then suddenly started heavy breathing followed by the fright response of Puffing up I have a feeling that he may have either gone after the Lion (playing or stalking) and got to close and got zapped.

 

[playtime]

So, just say he did get stung, maybe it isn't a good idea to add another fish to that tank. I know that there is plenty of room for both but I can't bare see it happen again.
Pufferlover: once stung, how long can it take to show signs? does it start right away or does it progress over several days? What if I added another lionfish instead of a porc. is there still danger of him getting stung (another lionfish I mean)?
Are there any fish resistant to lionfish stings?
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[pufferlover]

Well yours are good questions but beyond my area of knowledge, other then I have seen people stung by Lionfish and they were not happy campers. I have heard of fish being stung and passing within a day or two. I am only guessing based on your post. Many people keep Lions and Puffers in large tanks without problems but every so often it does not work. I have had only one lionfish in my fish keeping days and it was a dwarf Fu Manchu who died within a month. If it was the Lion and it has any smarts adding another Puff might end up the same way, so your idea has merit either a couple of comp. Lions or trade current Lion and get another Puff and a fish it can live with. Hopefully Lionfish will see this and give you some ideas as to what he thinks (he is the Lion expert around these parts partner).

 

[skirk]

Well, from a microbiological standpoint the chances of it being a bacterial infection are all but completely ruled out. I'd say that's not what it is. Secondly, lionfish are all I invest into "Lionsville" (population 3) and I know for sure that the response to the sting of a lionfish is immediate. A dwarf lions poison is of course not as great in volume when compared to a Volitan Lions, but if he is the same size as your puffer then the chances of Hootey not making it would be good. If your saying the waters good, there was no stress, and his temperment and feeding habits were fine until that one time and then he died then I would also back up the theory stating he may have been stung. The tank is a little small but should have been fine for the size of the fish.
Sounds like the poison could have caused an anaphylactic reaction (difficulty and eventual arrest in breathing) causing him to die. It can do the same thing to humans if they are allergic to it. With the puff being that small and all he would definitely have a reaction. Okay,okay, I won't go too far into this just in case it is something else. The only way to know for sure would be to perform Koch's postulates (but that probably won't be happening=)

 

[guppie]

I have heard about the same thing you are talking about at my lfs not to long ago. A guy was talking to the lfs person saying the same things you discribed, trying to figure out what happened to his fish, and the lfs person said that he had seen the same thing before a fish had got stung by a lion and was breathing very heavy and laying around and dies with in days I am no expert on lions but the two stories sound the same. Hope this helps. Good Luck

 

[lionfish]

LionFish says......
Well, looking at this from a normal person's stand point, I can give you my true and honest opinion which I think is accurate. Think of it this way. You have a puffer and lion that happen to be the same size. And seeing as your water was fine and the only other fish in there is a poisonous one I think it is easy to guess where I'm going with this.If you had good water quality and the puffer just died with a lion in there you can pretty much guess what happened. It is obvious the lion stung him. Now don't think your lion is attacking him. Lions usually spread their long fins with the barbs at the tip during feeding. So, if the puffer made a quick attempt at a piece of food or the lion didn't know where the puffer was and the puffer startled it, the lion is going to shott those fins out in all directions in hopes of hitting it's target, which would be the puffer. No matter what the size of the lion or the breed of lion their stings pack a punch and it usually has fatal effects on fish. The poison just slowly worked it's way to the puffer and eventually the poison was painful enough to kill the puffer. But, the lion isn't mean, he was trying to defend itself. Lions won't attack fish that they can't eat. They only try to defend themselves and the inevitable fate is death.If you are sure that the parameters were fine in the tank than the only thing that could have happened was the lion stung it. Sorry about Hooty.

 

[playtime]

I was hoping that getting stung isn't what happened but I think I was in denial. I am not angry with the lionfish (Metro) I know he wasn't being mean. He really has a great temperment. I am sorry to see Hootey go. He will be missed. I think I will keep Metro all by himself so that no one else gets hurt even by accident. Thanks guys for all your imput. I appreciate your quick replys.
Playtime

 

[tangcrazy]

Hey Playtime, I just wanted to share with you that I too just lost my golden puffer to a dwarf lion sting. He was stung on a wed. morning during feeding. In diving for a piece of food Tonga (my puffer) bumped into the lion. By Wed. afternoon I could tell he was sick, wed. night I tried antibiotics as I could not, not try something!! By Sat. morning he had passed. He was by far my most favorite fish, and now I too am faced with, do I get rid of the lion or do I just not replace the fish that die. I know the lion is not aggressive and certainly did not do it on purpose, but how hard it is to lose such a special fish. If you do read this post let me know what you decided, did you trade the lion for something else?

 

[pufferlover]

Both of these stories just confirms my feelings about mixing Lions and Puffers. Neither are mean fish as such but they just do not do well when kept together. Yesw I know many do it and have no problems, but these 2 are not the first stories I have heard of this happening. Puffers in some ways are just bullish fish and not deep thinking ones at feeding time and that is where the problems normally happen.

 

[blueberryboomer]

Playtime, I'm so sorry to hear about Hootie,
thats a total bummer!