The Puffer Forum

Hello all I just purchased a new figure 8 tonight for a 30 gallon and I am wondering if there are any other brackish fish that could be housed with them. I was considering maybe a couple of goby's or a grouper. Any thoughts?
What if any thing do you keep with them?

Welcome to the site!
Many people have had success with F8 tankmates, I'm sure they'll drop a line sometime soon. However, it does really depend the individual puffers temperment. Some will accept tankmates and others are just too vicious.

Thanks he was in a tank full of Red Scats at the LFS and didn't seem to bother them at all. I'm slowly acclimating the tank to brackish now as the LFS had them in "African cichlid" water lol.

I keep mine with 2 silver mollies and 4 bumblebee gobies and all is well.

If you go for bumblebee gobies you should go for a group of 4 at a minimum, they're thoroughly entertaining! Just make sure you have enough decor to keep everyone occupied as you will be pretty much at the maximum stocking level for that size of tank. And if the gobies get bored, they will fight - especially over territory, make plenty of places for everyone to make a home though and you'll be fine.

Another option is orange chromides but I think your tank would be overstocked with these as well as F8s.

I have 2 F8s with 2 sailfin marble mollys in a 40g and they get along beautifully. Mollies are pretty much your only algae eaters.

How about Bumble bee Gobies?

dingogirl66 wrote:How about Bumble bee Gobies?

I keep Bumblebee Gobies with my F8's, but many people report that at some point the Puffers may no longer tolerate the Gobies. Other people have kept Knight Gobies with F8's. I would say more than anything it depends on the temperament of your fish, it may or may not be fine with others. So I would just watch carefully if you decide to add tankmates, and be prepared to rehouse or return fish that don't work out.

well I decided to try 2 orange cromide's. I'll see how it goes. So far he has no interest in them and he is pretty big already about 2.3-3 inches so I'm not sure how old he is or how much bigger he will get. I'll just have to keep a close eye on them and make sure there is no major problems.

Bumblebees are questionable. I thought my puffers were pretty docile and I moved them recently into a new tank that had 4 BBs in there. I started with my smalles puffer and gave them each a week befor moving in the next. A day after I moved my biggest puffer in one of my BBs was found dead with a big chunk taken out of his back. Its been a month since and the rest are stillall accounted for thankfully. Always safer to use big fish, my puffers paid no attention to my scat and mono but unfortuantely cant keep either of them due to size, which BTW I am still trying to find a new home for if anyone is interested.

I keep 2 knight gobies with my two juvenile figure 8's, and so far, if anything, the knight gobies push the puffers around (they are bigger).
They seem to go well together because they have similar temperaments, but we'll see how it goes when the puffers are full grown.

I currently have my 2 F8's in with some boesmani rainbowfish...their was a little fin damage initially, but now the rainbows avoid the f8's, and they have the speed to stay outta the way. They will steal food from the F8's. It is actually kind of funny, as the chunks of food are too large for them to swallow...so they just swim around playing keep-away from the puffers...I am sure this behavior will be punished in the future, but I have a Rainbow tank set up if things should get nasty...

As with all puffers, their personalities vary so much that its difficult to say what is wrong and what is right.

Obviously, an aggressive puffer will do a lot of damage to a BB Goby but I think on the most-part this is a safe pairing. It probably has something to do with the black and yellow striping of the gobies - that combination in the wild means "stay away, I'm dangerous." I'm sure Mr Monks can expand on that but you get what I mean.

If anything I have found the gobies to be more aggressive than my F8s.

My moolies just had babies and my F8s chase them if they come near but more of a "Get away kid you bother me." than a "I'm gonna eat you."

fish_freak wrote:well I decided to try 2 orange cromide's. I'll see how it goes. So far he has no interest in them and he is pretty big already about 2.3-3 inches so I'm not sure how old he is or how much bigger he will get. I'll just have to keep a close eye on them and make sure there is no major problems.

How's things going? I've recently purchased some Orange Chromides. They're very attractive and active little fish. The photos I have seen never do them justice!