A Resourceful Puffer

[wsboyette]

Many years ago in my previous setup, I had, in addition to other fish, a leopard puffer. One night, while I was vacuuming the substrate after removal of a nasty UG filter, the motor filter suddenly began to make that loud starving noise. I saw that I had inadvertently knocked the strainer off the lift tube, and thought 'Oh no, I've ground up a fish in the filter.' After shutting everything off, I removed the lift tube from the filter unit and peered down into the impeller - no fish in there. I then looked into the end of the lift tube, and there was the obstruction - the puffer. He had been sucked up into the tube, and had saved his own life by inflating his body, thus stopping himself inside the tube...... In a few seconds he deflated and slipped out of the tube back into the tank, and resumed normal swimming as though nothing had happened. A tale right out of Finding Nemo !

 

[estanoche]

hehe great story!! and smart puffer!!

good thing mother nature wanted him to stay alive - how long did you have him/do you still have him?

 

[wsboyette]

I did not have him but for a couple of years; he kept trying to suicide by jumping out of the tank until he finally did it while I was away and succeeded..... The setup was broken down when I moved to my current location, and after 18 years, I am finally setting the tank up again.