Puffer Dilemma

anicemess

anicemess

New member
My mature, 12" long stars and stripes puffer (pufferbitch) suddenly stopped eating x 3 days. Tank is in turmoil when pump crapped out while I was on vacation. Nitrates and phosphates kicked up. However, I've been working on this for 3 weeks. During this time, the small amount of corals (ONLY several rocks with palys and one sun coral) died off and/or are shriveling up. The fish are hanging in there.

Here's the dilemma; I had a small spiny urchin that would hang from the roof of a cave made out of rocks. It would hang on the underside of the 'ceiling' of the cave. Several days ago I found it on the sand bed. I assumed it bit the dust because of the water problem but I left it alone just in case. With the pump problems I'm going through, I had not thought about the urchin again. Until the third day in a row that the puffer won't eat.

I can't find the urchin, dead or alive, but I have a lot of rockwork so it's possibly still alive and hiding.

However, is it possible that the very large puffer ate the whole thing? I do not see any spines laying on the sand bed. If he ate it, would it do him harm? Is it imperative I pull apart the aquascape to determine if the urchin is still in the tank?

Going to soak some shrimp in garlic to see if I can get him to eat....
 
For what it's worth, sea urchins are one of a pufferfish's favorite foods. They will pick on them, and nip off spines until they can get them flipped over, and then dinner is served.....
 
ive seen it first hand, my 15" stars and stripes loved any intert i put into the tank. even snails....

sorry to hear this is happening but at least some of your livestock is hanging in there, sounds like you have some pretty hardy fish so i would just get your perimeters back in shape and go from there..

good luck! keep us posted
 
I bought 1000 snails from the guy on ebay from NC who is selling them cheap. Someone else started a thread here about them. The puffer wasn't interested. Okay, he wasn't interested in the snails so I took a chance on an urchin. But I do not see any spines or body parts. It's fine that he ate it, at least he's eating something but he hasn't eaten since. This is day 4. I assume he ate the soft innards like we do but if he ate a spine or two, would that affect him?
 
Markiteck (sp) sold me a very large trigger that he was having trouble housing. I know I should not have purchased him until the water was fine but they are a very hardy fish and I knew he didn't have a big enough tank so I bought him. He has been hiding in caves since I put him in tank but seems healthy.
 
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