Let’s talk Boxfish
By Elizabeth M. Lukan to Critter Corner on Thursday, March 20th, 2008.By Elliot Dulberger, June 24, 2002, edited by Elizabeth M. Lukan.
This week I thought we would do a series on the Boxfish (which as you all know by now is one of my least favorite SW fish, due to the damage they can do to your tank).
These fish have a rigid body made up of bony plates covered with a sensitive skin that may be damaged by cleaner fishes. They are slow moving fish - and some have described them as hovercraft fishes - and they do have an interesting way of moving, making rapid movements of the dorsal, anal and pectoral fins. If buying one of these fish, avoid any that have concave sides as these fish never recover from this probable semi-starved state.
Most are poisonous, releasing a toxin into the water when threatened. In the confines of a tank, or in the transportation container, this often proves fatal both to the Boxfish and to other fishes. Introduce these fish into the tank first in order to reduce the chances of fatal consequences should the Boxfish become frightened.
These fish will eat anything, but appear to relish worm foods.
Some of the more common Boxfishes are as follows:
- Long-Horned Cowfish, Lactoria cornuta - 16 inches in tank (20 wild)
- Blue-Spotted Boxfish, Ostracion lentiginosum - 4 inches in tank (8 wild)
- White-spotted Boxfish, Ostracion meleagris - 4 inches in tank (6 wild)
- Blue-spotted Boxfish, Ostracion tuberculaturn - 12 inches in tank (18 wild)
As I have said before, unless you keep these fish in their own tanks the odds are at some point you will have a problem with them. Not only do they release the toxin when scared, they do it when they die. If not that then if they die and another fish nibbles on the body they get a mouthful of poison for their efforts. I guess for the daring hobbyist these fish are an interesting one to have, but for me I’ll pass - thank you very much lol.
Liz’s Notes: Editing was limited to spelling and grammar corrections and formatting. The above article was part of a series of posts called “Let’s talk” found on Elliot Dulberger’s pufferlovers.com site. Elliot gave me permission to republish the series. Sadly, the pufferlovers.com web site is no more.
Photo Credits: The Ostracion cubicus image was obtained at the Animal-World web site (http://animal-world.com/). According to David Brough, he obtained the image from a book called “Creating Your Own Netscape webpages” by Andy Shafran and published by QUE Corp. 1995. The book noted permission given to use the photo for “internet publications.” Thanks go to David for helping me get a great photo to go with my article!