Question about Puffers!

[willisrad]

Ok.
I am going to be setting up a 75 Gallon tank, and plan on either doing a Cichlid setup, or a tank with a puffer or even 2.

What types of puffers do good in freshwater? I have read a lot of conflicting information.

What are good tankmates for puffers?

I know that I need a well planted tank with lots of hiding places and big plants, and that's not a problem.

I am getting my tank tomorrow, and need to figure out how I am going to start setting this thing up.

Thanks!

[Drumachine09]

Ok.
I am going to be setting up a 75 Gallon tank, and plan on either doing a Cichlid setup, or a tank with a puffer or even 2.

What types of puffers do good in freshwater? I have read a lot of conflicting information.

What are good tankmates for puffers?

I know that I need a well planted tank with lots of hiding places and big plants, and that's not a problem.

I am getting my tank tomorrow, and need to figure out how I am going to start setting this thing up.

Thanks!




You could probobly get about 10 dwarf puffers. I think...


pm kimmers

[willisrad]

I'd like to have a variety of fish if possible, but I know that puffers can be finicky with tankmates and whatnot......

[holbritter]

From everything I've read and heard, about the only tankmate for them might be the oto. I've also seen where someone sucessfully had the bumble bee goby with them. There are 2 species of these, one that needs brackish water and the other freshwater. I'm not sure how to tell the difference though.

I think a lot depends on the personality of the puffer. But the general consensus, that I've read about, is that they should be in a species only tank.

I'm planning on trying some ghost shrimp when I finally have my tank ready.

[RobbieG]

If you set up the tank for brackish water you could have 1-2 green scats or 1-2 monos.

[kimmers318]

Well, I had written a long reply to this post, but stepped away to have a cup of coffee and got logged off!
Lets try again. Dwarf puffers, carinotetraodon travancoricus, are FW only. This is the only species I am aware of as being referred to as dwarf puffers. There are a couple of other smaller FW species that usually do okay in groups, but I have never seen them in NE Ohio.
Whether a puffer will accept tankmates or not is up to the puffer. My oldest female dp harrassed her first buddy to death, but has since accepted a male and female as tankmates with a few otos. At one time I also had african dwarf frogs in there and they were fine, but when Missy was in my community tank she munched alot of fins.
My limited experience is that the more active puffers will sometimes accept tankmates easier if kept well fed, but the lurker species that I have had, and do have will not. If a fish gets within their range they will shoot out and get it.
Puffers need specialized foods, the smaller varieties are easier than the larger ones obviously. Puffers teeth continue to grow and if not kept worn down with crunchy food they will overgrow (some species are worse than others) and will need to be manually trimmed so they can continue to eat. Most puffer owners have a snail breeding tank to keep their puffers in crunchy foods.
Check out pufferresources.net and thepufferforum.com for great profile information and articles on puffer care. Both of these websites are dedicated to puffers and their care. You can browse thru threads to see who is having success with tankmates and who hasn't. My modestus is currently sharing his tank with a school of barbs. I was given a lone tiger barb to rescue last July and as these guys are pretty nippy did not want him in my community tank. I certainly didn't want to put a school of them in there. He did great with the modestus so I got him some buddies and all is well so far, but I realize that this could change as the puffer matures. I had a 1 inch congo puffer that killed a 4 inch bristlenose pleco. Some puffers won't hesitate to take on someone much larger than themselves.
Keep us posted on what you decide to do and please get us pics!

[willisrad]

Well, as interesting as pufferfish are, I don't think that I really want to dedicate an entire 75 Gallon tank to just a couple of fish.

I may decide to turn my 29 gallon tank into a puffer tank down the road, but for now, I just don't think it's the route I want to go.

I think that I've even talked myself out of mbunas as well since it seems like they are going to be a bit too finicky and I have to worry about males gettting vicious.

I still want to do a pretty interesting tank either with other cichlids, or an interesting semi-aggressive tank with an eel mixed into the scheme of things.........

[cocoa_pleco]

4 severums and a tire track eel?

[kimmers318]

Sorry that you decided to stay away from puffers, but, I am glad it was made as an informed decision. Too many people come home with a "cute" puffer and the LFS tells them "sure, it will be okay with......", the next thing you know someone has a fish that is killing off their other fish, or worse yet, dieing from starvation because it isn't fed a proper diet. Puffers aren't for everyone, but once you have one, watch out, you will get hooked!
The modestus that I spoke of had supposedly been returned to the store 3 times because it wouldn't share a tank with anyone. I have a sneaky suspicion that it had more to do with the fact that the LFS felt it could live on a diet of brine shrimp and the poor guy just needed something good to eat.