How do you make a puffer fish puff?

[esmithiii]

There is one thing I have not seen in this post (hard as hell to believe, I know) or perhaps it's there and I just missed it. That is a mention of "intent". Intent is the key to the cruelty vs. not cruelty. At least this is my opinion.

I made this point somewhere on page two and again on page 4. I called it motive, not intent, but same issue.

I'm only trying to drive one small point home to those reading this thread.

You should never handle your fish unless absolutely necessary. It is stressful and has been shown to cause harm to the fish in more than one way.

Experts here with ten times more experience with these fish than you or I have refuted this and have said it causes no harm.

Ernie

 

[Len]

Greg,

I'm sorry if you're inferring that everyone is attacking you. I really think no one is. I have never called your opinions preposterous or wrong. You seem offended because people question your opinions. Should everyone be equally offended that you dismiss theirs outright?

What I meant to suggest is that you have explicitly stated you do not want to talk about the other issues in this thread when you said "I have no interest to debate the dozens of other issues at this place and time." If I am mistaken, my apologies. I don't see why you think I'm firing off a "cheap shot."

 

[Len]

...

 

[Anonymous]

saltyzoo,

I am sorry if you feel I am attacking you.
I am sorry if you feel I am peppering you with cheap shots.
Though I expect you wont believe me, I am trying to understand you and your positions, but for your own reasons, you don't want to facillitate such understanding.

If you only came to this thread to make the one point, which you have made several times, I am at a loss to understand why you continue to post.

Happy reefing, and I hope one day you will help me understand how you came to the positions you hold.

RR

 

[saltyzoo]

Experts here with ten times more experience with these fish than you or I

That's quite a statement considering you haven't the foggiest idea what my experience is.

I don't know about you personally, and I don't know your "experts" from adam, but every expert that I've discussed this with has been as shocked as I am.

If you read the only documentation that has been provided by anyone here you will see that there are very strong reasons why contact with your fish should be avoided whenever possible. Or, you can believe what an "expert" on the internet told you. Do the research for yourself. I challenge you to find anything that shows that there is no problem with handling fish. I gaurantee that in the process you'll find plenty more evidence that it is a bad idea.

It's obvious there are still hard feelings about my use of the word "preposterous". I'm sorry, but I cannot take it back. I still feel that ignoring the stresses involved with handling fish is preposterous. I do apologize if you find that offensive.

As for the apologies for the attacks, that is not necessary. I've been around long enough not to let such things bother me. My point in bringing it up is to expose the attack for what it is and yet again try to keep on topic. The fact that I won't argue about everything from collection to peace in the middle east has nothing to do with whether handling puffers is good husbandry or not. Sorry righty, I have no idea how else to explain it other than how I have 10 times already. I agree that collection is a problem. I also agree that murder is wrong and that the moon is not made of green cheese, but that's not the topic at hand, is it? That just seems so clear to me I don't understand how you can't see it.

The argument continues, yet I've provided evidence of my side, and there have been experts chime in on my side as well. I've seen no evidence to the contrary whatsover except some people that I don't know from adam say it's ok. What is this based on exactly? How did they determine it's ok exactly?

And to end, I'll repeat something I said on a much earlier post. Even if I'm wrong, which there hasn't been the tinyiest shred of evidence presented yet to prove such.....

I'm missing out on making a fish puff up.

If I'm right.....

You are threatening the health and life of your fish.

Such a simple choice to make.

 

[esmithiii]

I don't know about you personally, and I don't know your "experts" from adam, but every expert that I've discussed this with has been as shocked as I am.

This statement is wrong- you have discussed this at great length with several experts on this board (myself not included) who maintain that the practice is (based on their direct, personal experience) harmless.

I may have confused you with someone else (man this thread is long!) but have you, in fact, handled thousands of these fish? Has Borneman? I haven't. Have any of the other "experts" that you mention handled that many fish? There are several people who have responded who have and who report that the practice is harmless.

Have you or someone you know had a pufferfish die from a small, gentle pinch? If so, please let us know so that we can learn from the experience.

Ernie

 

[saltyzoo]

I've seen no evidence to the contrary whatsover except some people that I don't know from adam say it's ok. What is this based on exactly? How did they determine it's ok exactly?

Do these experts work with the same thousands of fish day after day or are they shipping them out to who knows what fate? Keeping a fish alive for a week is pretty easy. Is there long term documentation involved that hasn't been shared? Has there been a controlled study of fish being regularly handled and them not having any stress?

How about a study that shows that no mucus loss occurs, or that loss of mucus does not increase the frequency of infection?

I've provided evidence contrary to all the above. I'm not going to be convinced by a collector / wholesaler / retailer that says it doesn't matter. I'm going to need to see some facts.

 

[John_Brandt]

There is no question that physically handling fish poses certain risks.

The important question is... what is the relative risk of harming a puffer if you give it a gentle pinch in order to coax it to inflate?

My experiences with gently pinching puffers are legitimate informal controlled scientific experiments. In 20-30 puffer pinchings in over two decades, I have never seen a single case of damage, disease, noticible negative affects on behavior or mortality. These observations cannot be discounted by reasonable persons in a search for relative risk. The control for these experiments comes from observations on puffers that have not been pinched.

Very recently Mitch Gibbs (dizzy) pinched a puffer (causing it to inflate) in his retail store. I hope that Mitch will continue to report on the health of this puffer as it will add to the informal scientific database on the affects of puffer pinching.

There is no need to perform puffer-pinching experiments in a laboratory, as puffer-pinching is a real-world action, and it can be observed and documented where and when it happens. Surely, many owners of puffers have observed them spontaneously inflate in their aquariums. Each inflation, and the health outcome afterwards, counts as legitimate data on the relative harm of puffer inflation. These spontaneous inflations are not accompanied by the pinch, but they are examples of inflation; and numerous posters have asserted that inflation itself is potentially harmful.

Those who have proclaimed that the "only science" offered in this thread are the quotations on the risks of harm from handling fish are naive to the fact that science, is fundamentally nothing more than humans closely observing the real world. Observations that show no short or long-term harm from gently pinching puffers cannot be overlooked as good observations on the real world. Therefore, they count as science.

 

[Anonymous]

How about someone whose experience includes that at a public aquarium? Would that be good enough, since the anectodal evidence isn't? Would you agree that a p.a. isn't in the business of selling, shipping, or otherwise stressing or killing fish, but instead would endeavor to achieve just the opposite?

Why won't you address the idea of fishes that appear to enjoy interacting physically with humans? I'm getting a little tired of being ignored, though I won't accuse anyone of nefarious intent because of it.

 

[Anonymous]

If you read the only documentation that has been provided by anyone here you will see that there are very strong reasons why contact with your fish should be avoided whenever possible.

I think it is fair to point out that the study linked in this thread is about fish farming. A very different balliwick than keeping several specimens in a 'loved' enviornment as pets.

In a fish farm any 'stress' could lead to a bad situation, as it is probable that all the other stressors discussed in the article are active as well. The fish are not individually looked after, so if there is any problem, it is unlikely that it will be caught in time to do something about it.

In the home, if the fish is heathy and well adjusted, made to puff occasionaly and it welfare after such puffing is taken into account, I don't see the harm in it. Sure there is a risk, I have never said otherwise, but is just seems like a small one.

It's obvious there are still hard feelings about my use of the word "preposterous". I'm sorry, but I cannot take it back. I still feel that ignoring the stresses involved with handling fish is preposterous. I do apologize if you find that offensive.

I think you still miss the point. No one in this thread has ignored the stresses involved with handling fish.

My point in bringing it up is to expose the attack for what it is and yet again try to keep on topic.

What attack?
Also, from time to time the 'keeping it on topic' idea comes up. I am perplexed by it, as if somehow, we need to limit our discussion instead of letting it grow.

The fact that I won't argue about everything from collection to peace in the middle east has nothing to do with whether handling puffers is good husbandry or not.

And with the exception of your middle east example, I disagree with you.
I don't see how claiming moral high ground in regards to touching a puffer is divorced from not claiming moral high ground regarding reefing in general.

Sorry righty, I have no idea how else to explain it other than how I have 10 times already. I agree that collection is a problem. I also agree that murder is wrong and that the moon is not made of green cheese, but that's not the topic at hand, is it? That just seems so clear to me I don't understand how you can't see it.

Perhaps because collecting fish is related to keeping keeping fish, but murder and what the moon is made of clearly are not.

I'm missing out on making a fish puff up.

If I'm right.....

You are threatening the health and life of your fish.

Such a simple choice to make.

And my response again, which you don't want to address: Why do you not apply the same argument to fishkeeping in general?
:mrgreen:

 

[saltyzoo]

I've seen thousands of fish go through the horrible process of transfer that was discussed earlier and live to tell the tale. Does this mean that the collection and shipping process is not stressful? What's that word? Preposterous?

That's not very good science IMO. It simply proves that 20 or 30 fish managed to live through bad husbandry. Perhaps your ability to provide other facets of good husbandry helped your success, but IMO this is not proof of anything but good luck.

I've shown specific reasons why handling a fish is harmful. The fact that 20 or 30 fish have lived through it does not disprove any of my reasons. If you want to change my mind you're simply going to have to do better than that.

The important question is... what is the relative risk of harming a puffer if you give it a gentle pinch in order to coax it to inflate?

No. the important question is Why in the world would you intentionally do something so purposeless that is proven to be stressful and potentially harmful to an animal in your care?

 

[saltyzoo]

How about someone whose experience includes that at a public aquarium?

LOL I think that's a great idea. Wait a minute I know someone that has such experience. Maybe you ought to find out the experience of the person you are arguing with before discounting what they say.... The irony is killing me.

Oh, and I'm not ignoring you. I responded to your "they like it" comment pages and pages ago. How about this? A dog will run across a busy street to get some attention. Does that mean you should encourage dogs to run across busy streets?

 

[Anonymous]

No. the important question is Why in the world would you intentionally do something so purposeless that is proven to be stressful and potentially harmful to an animal in your care?

For the same reason you would intentionally do something so purposeless that is proven to be stressful and potentially harmful to an animal in your care: taking it out of the wild for your selfish enjoyment in the first place.

Do you see how they are connected? You think touching a puffers is purposeless, but it can also easily be argued that keeping fish at all is just a purposeless. Why is the one you want to do 'wrong' and the one you don't want to do 'right'?

 

[John_Brandt]

I've shown specific reasons why handling a fish is harmful. The fact that 20 or 30 fish have lived through it does not disprove any of my reasons. If you want to change my mind you're simply going to have to do better than that.

The important question is... what is the relative risk of harming a puffer if you give it a gentle pinch in order to coax it to inflate?

No. the important question is Why in the world would you intentionally do something so purposeless that is proven to be stressful and potentially harmful to an animal in your care?

Saltyzoo,

Exactly how many successful puffer-pinchings would it take to "change your mind", since you suggest that it would take more than that to do so? Remember that this is 100% success so far, with 20-30 data sets.

Why in the world would I do it? I've done it to demonstrate puffer inflation to select curious people. I satisfied my own curiousity of the behavior decades ago.

I'm in the business of keeping fish alive for extended periods of time. It's how I make my living. I wouldn't do this if I thought it meaningfully put the fish at risk.

 

[John_Brandt]

A dog will run across a busy street to get some attention. Does that mean you should encourage dogs to run across busy streets?

Dogs don't do this more than once or twice in their lives.

Saltyzoo, I think you have severely underestimated the intellectual capacity of members of this particular bulletin board.

 

[saltyzoo]

It's not the number that is at issue. Pinching 20 puffers and seeing if they live is not going to prove anything and is hardly scientific. If I pinched 20 puffers and they all died would you be willing to accept that it was due to the pinching? I hope not. There is not enough evidence there to show causality. Your example has the same problem.

Pinch a puffer and study the effects on it's mucus and study the effects of those effects on disease and THEN you can draw some conclusions.

All you can say right now is that you pinched 20 puffers and they lived. You can't say that they would not have been healthier had you not pinched them because you did not further study than observe blatantly obvious signs such as mortality. You have no way of knowing that had ich or some other infection been present in the tank at the time of your pinching the fish may have died quickly because of the pinching.

 

[Anonymous]

LOL I think that's a great idea. Wait a minute I know someone that has such experience. Maybe you ought to find out the experience of the person you are arguing with before discounting what they say.... The irony is killing me.

How could we find out? Perhaps you could tell us.

 

[John_Brandt]

It's not the number that is at issue. Pinching 20 puffers and seeing if they live is not going to prove anything and is hardly scientific. If I pinched 20 puffers and they all died would you be willing to accept that it was due to the pinching? I hope not. There is not enough evidence there to show causality. Your example has the same problem.

Pinch a puffer and study the effects on it's mucus and study the effects of those effects on disease and THEN you can draw some conclusions.

No Salty, it is enough evidence if you observe them for meaningful lengths of time afterwards.

When no infection ever develops at the point-of-pinch you have a data point. This is not an unfalsifiable hypothesis. If pinching can cause an infection at the point-of-pinch and it is observable, then the absence of infection at that point is a valid observation in support of no infection.

 

[esmithiii]

It's not the number that is at issue. Pinching 20 puffers and seeing if they live is not going to prove anything and is hardly scientific. If I pinched 20 puffers and they all died would you be willing to accept that it was due to the pinching? I hope not. There is not enough evidence there to show causality. Your example has the same problem.

Apart from the small sample size, it is enough to prove our hypothesis that puffer-pinching does not result in death nor infection. Our point is that puffer-pinching is not that harmful. Your point is that puffer pinching is harmful. It is much easier to prove, with the described experiment that it is not harmful. We don't have to prove causality; you do to prove your point.

If the puffers suffer no side effects from the pinching then we can conclude that the pinching Does not cause side effects. It is that simple.

I think the bottom line is that you and others find the thought of pinching a puffer distressing. It just sounds bad so why can't we all see that it must be bad. That is the crix of your argument, IMO. You claim to have provided data, and all you have shown is that in fish farming operations where fish are packed together like cattle in a cattlecar and are under stress that touching them can lead to disease or death.

We are not advocating frequent, rough or intense handling. What was mentioned was a small pinch of a small area of skin, nothing more.

Can you provide (anecdotal or otherwise) evidence that lightly pinching a puffer often leads to disease?

Ernie

 

[Len]

For further clarification, I don't think anyone is even arguing that hobbyist should pinch a puffer, even infrequently. Some persons are suggesting, however, that it's really no big deal per their first-hand experiences, and even less of a deal when put into persepctive of the larger ethical issue of reefkeeping itself.