Large Marine Puffer Aggression

[salt_water_aquarist]

I've had a Stellatus for about 5 months now. He was about 3" when I got him, and has grown to around 6" now!! He eats like a pig. He displayed no aggression to his 4" Mappa puffer tankmate except during feeding time. He and the Mappa went for a shrimp at the same time and the Stellatus bit the tissue off the Mappa's beak and exposed the beak fully (it was tough to look at for a while but it healed in about 1 week). As a precaution, I started feeding each puffer simultaneously with 2 pairs off tweezers to separate them, to preclude this from happening again.

I just moved the Stellatus today from the 120 gallon tank he was in to a 600 gallon tank. The 600 gallon tank has two puffers already (a 7" Porcupine, and a 8" Meleagris Guinea fowl). I've never seen the Porcupine or Guinea fowl puffers display any aggression toward each other (even during feeding they wait their turn). However, when I put the Stellatus in today, I witnessed after several hours, the Guinea fowl acting aggressively toward the Stellatus, and at one point chasing the Stellatus around the tank. Finally the Stellatus hid in a rock formation out of view. However the Guinea fowl apparently got the bad end of the deal because I eventually saw no wounds on the Stellatus but the Guinea fowl had a round flesh wound around the lower jaw. Also, for some reason after that, the Guinea fowl (for the first time ever observed) started chasing the Porcupine around the tank (maybe he was just mad in general because the Stellatus entered his territory, I don't know). Anyway, do you or anyone else have any experience with these Arothron type puffers displaying aggression ? - sure is surprising to me. I know that I've had some fish species (e.g., Marine Angels) display aggression when a newcomer enters the tank and then things usually eventually "settle down". Do you reckon the same thing will happen with these puffers or am I going to have to be on guard to take the Stellatus out? (my 600 gallon tank is 10 ft. long x 30" wide with 700# of live rock w/ 120 gallon sump).

[The Bruce]

i put an A. immaculatus with an A. manilensis......the next day i found the immaculatus dead with not one part of his body void of round bite marks, i thought the initial chasing by the manilensis was just show, nope.....sad day

[Nick]

Rearranging everything in the tank so it becomes a totally new environment for all the fish can fix this type of problem sometimes.

[schlecht13]

I maintain several large puffers in a large tank and rarely see aggression - as you mentioned - during feeding time - they get a little "territorial" which I solved this similiar to you and put lots of food in there, mussels etc and usually they find their own and leave each other alone...I have noticed that as puffers age (specifically Stellatus and Hispidus) they seem to get a bit more aggresive. Because mine are housed in a 200G, I am afraid they simply need more room. I will say howevever that during the day, one of my Stellatus actually literally lays on top of the hispidus and they stay like this for hours at a time "resting" I assume - no aggression here...

From my experience, it seems that there are many variables that cause this. In another tank I have a 2" immaculatus, a 5" striped puffer and a 3" striped puffer (among other random fish). The immaculatus was put in last, is the smallest and just happens to be the most aggressive to tankmates - he chases the large striped one around - occasionally the larger one will simply stop moving in which case the immaculatus just moves on to chasing the smaller striped...Sometimes they will go days or weeks completely ignoring each other.

Because I can't find a common denominator if you will, I have to assume there is more going on here than we as humans can or have yet to understand (i.e. hormones in the water, territories and who knows what else).

All I can say is, quite frankly, it depends on the puffers personality. I always thought Mappas were the most calm (and still do barring the following) until I put one mappa in with another - WOW the existing Mappa didn't like the new guy at all despite the new guy being twice his size although that same "mean Mappa" could care less about the racoon butterfly, plethora of cocoa damsels, various pygmy angels and others. He doesn't even bother the striped puffers who are smaller - just other Mappas...

K sorry to be so winded, but bottom line, there is more going on than meets the eye - something they "emit or communicate" that we as humans don't get...hard to give a hard and fast rule b/c IMO there aren't any....