fishdudein
Fishaholic
My wife got a BIG chuckle out of this story when I told her about it....
Got a fresh can of freeze dried tubifex yesterday, had been out for quite some time. Through trial and error, I have found that some fish will come to the surface to grab these, while others do better if you hold the cube underwater and gently squeeze it to re-hydrate the worms. Anyway, I was at my 125 gallon saltwater tank and thought the damsels might appreciate a few of these, so I stuck my hand in the water and non-chalantly began squeezing the cube (actually looking over at the 50 gallon tank next to it with some new badis in it) when...WHAM!...my ring finger is suddenly attacked by my stars and stripes puffer. Scared the stuffin right out of me!(cause I wasn't paying attention!). I instinctively jerked my hand out of the water, and the little puffer is holding on like a bulldog until my hand snaps. Then he is doing an upward arc through the air! (I still am not sure at this point what has just happened to me.) I hear a splash, look over and see that he has landed in one of the 5 gallon buckets that I had filled the day before with fresh water. Thankfully he didn't puff up, I just grabbed a cup and dipped him out of the fresh water and poured him back into the saltwater. The whole episode was over in probably 20 seconds!
We both came through the ordeal OK. My finger was a little tender the rest of the night, but he didn't break the skin or anything. I've seen the chunks he can take out of a piece of shrimp or a mussel...I'm thankful! And the puffer was immediately swimming around the tank as if nothing had happened. Could have been a lot worse for him, too, if he hadn't landed in the water...as high as I flung him out of the tank he would have hit the floor pretty hard, then he would have puffed up with air, not a good thing.
And I've been thinking lately about getting a lionfish
I'm gonna think some more.
Got a fresh can of freeze dried tubifex yesterday, had been out for quite some time. Through trial and error, I have found that some fish will come to the surface to grab these, while others do better if you hold the cube underwater and gently squeeze it to re-hydrate the worms. Anyway, I was at my 125 gallon saltwater tank and thought the damsels might appreciate a few of these, so I stuck my hand in the water and non-chalantly began squeezing the cube (actually looking over at the 50 gallon tank next to it with some new badis in it) when...WHAM!...my ring finger is suddenly attacked by my stars and stripes puffer. Scared the stuffin right out of me!(cause I wasn't paying attention!). I instinctively jerked my hand out of the water, and the little puffer is holding on like a bulldog until my hand snaps. Then he is doing an upward arc through the air! (I still am not sure at this point what has just happened to me.) I hear a splash, look over and see that he has landed in one of the 5 gallon buckets that I had filled the day before with fresh water. Thankfully he didn't puff up, I just grabbed a cup and dipped him out of the fresh water and poured him back into the saltwater. The whole episode was over in probably 20 seconds!
We both came through the ordeal OK. My finger was a little tender the rest of the night, but he didn't break the skin or anything. I've seen the chunks he can take out of a piece of shrimp or a mussel...I'm thankful! And the puffer was immediately swimming around the tank as if nothing had happened. Could have been a lot worse for him, too, if he hadn't landed in the water...as high as I flung him out of the tank he would have hit the floor pretty hard, then he would have puffed up with air, not a good thing.
And I've been thinking lately about getting a lionfish
I'm gonna think some more.
