Box Fish Advice Needed

[schwh01]

Bought a small box fish yesterday. All seemed fine, he was even feeding straight away. I run a canister filter (empty) for extra circulation and he was swimming up and down in the flow and now it looks like he's ingested some air. He can't orientate his body correctly and is permanently in a tail up nose down position. He's swimming hard all the time trying to correct himself.

Has anyone ever had an experience like this before and can anyone offer a likely prognosis/ advice about how I might help him.

PS.
Because I'm worried he'll get stressed or worse, I've put him in a clear plastic container floating in the main tank so his toxins won't annihilate everything should the worst happen

 

[Len]

It's likely a swim bladder problem which boxfish are particularly susceptible to. There's really not much you can do unless you're experienced at "needling" (which I strongly recommend against). The best you can do right now, IMO, is to give it a calm shelter and hope that it "passes gas" on its own. There may be some blockage from food that is interfering with swim bladder control.

 

[schwh01]

Thankfully he has sorted himself out and is back in the main tank happy as larry now.
Cheers

 

[schwh01]

Thankfully he has sorted himself out and is back in the main tank happy as larry now.
Cheers

 

[Anonymous]

Just curious...what type of boxfish is this? Is he in a reef? What size tank is he in?

Peace,

Chip

 

[schwh01]

He's a juvenile yellow box fish (Ostracion cubicus) about the size of your thumb nail squared.

He's in a 40g corner tank with various mushrooms, polyp rocks, soft corals three gobies and a clown.