Burrfish

[paul b]

Boy is this guy mad at me. I collected him last year ans today I found a 3" bristle worm and put it in front of him. He looked at the worm, then he looked at me, then he looked back at the worm and tried to eat it. He immediately spit it out and looked like he was choking. He went to the back of the tank and now he is not talking to me.

 

[Charlie]

I'm not sure that would happen like that to any but you Paul.

[jason the filter freak]

That is an awesome looking fish

[paul b]

He is a cutie, here he is when we collected him at about 3/4"

[Mountaineer]

That is a beautiful fish you've got there. The story made me laugh out loud.

[CHUBAKAH]

What does he eat typically?

 

Very unique looking specimen.

[paul b]

Every day he gets fresh clams and live worms. Sometimes he gets fresh shrimp but he is not picky and will eat anything meaty just no pellets or flakes.

Sometimes he likes to come to Red Lobster with me and my wife.

[Glenn]

... and will eat anything meaty ...

 

You have to modify this now with ALMOST anything meaty ... bristle worms are off the diet - no matter how meaty they are

[paul b]

Thats why I said "almost"

[CHUBAKAH]

 

Sometimes he likes to come to Red Lobster with me and my wife.

Boy you ain't kiddin. He must not be picky if he eats that crap.

 

 

 

 

[paul b]

He must not be picky if he eats that crap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually I have not been to a Red Lobster in about 25 years but it is the first thing that came to mind.

We go to Real seafood restaurants, we are going to one tonight by boat.

Have a great night

Paul

[paul b]

Ok now I know what to feed my burrfish, fiddler crabs. My wife and I spend the night out on the boat and this morning I collected four fiddlers just to test them out. My burrfish devoured all four of them as soon as they hit the water.

We are going out again monday and I will collect a bunch of fiddlers.

Fiddlers are an interesting animal to keep but you need to have the correct home for them. You can't keep them underwater or they croak, you need more land areas than water areas. They just need to take a dip occasionally to wet their gills. I have kept them for years.

But now I will just keep them for burrfish food.

[paul b]

Ok I spent $100.00 on boat gas, went to a nice tide pool and collected a bunch of fiddler crabs and now he got tired of them.

Click the picture

 

[gmubeach]

So you drowned that crab for nothing he is a cool fish maybe he just got over fed or something...where did you find him?

[paul b]

So you drowned that crab for nothing he is a cool fish maybe he just got over fed or something...where did you find him?

 

That crab is fine, this morning he is eating and making friends with the other crabs and snails in there.

He could live in there forever.

I collected that fish on the south shore of Long Island late last summer.

[paul b]

The fiddler crabs are so happy to be in my workshop that they were doing the wild thing.

One of them is loaded with eggs so I can't feed her to my burrfish. Well, I can but I would feel to bad about it. After the eggs hatch, probably in a day or two I will return her to her tide pool.

I will probably get a Christmas card from her later this year.

The babies will live a couple of days then disappear. This happens all the time with fiddler crabs and many animals spawn when their conditions change, even to worse conditions.

[paul b]

It always amazes me how these little burrfish (and porcupinefish) can just devour live fiddler crabs. Those things have a huge claw which bite really hard. But the burrfish just grab the thing and with no fear, eat the thing parctically whole.

The bites don't seem to bother them but their eyes are vulnerable. I usually break off the bog claw of the crab, the fish don't mind but I want him to keep both of his eyes