About figure-8 puffer and tank mates

[Lennie]

Hello Everyone!

First things first I wanna thank you y'all for having such great info here. I obtained lots of info regarding my puffer, tank setup and tank mates.

I have a custom made shallow tank 50x40x25cm/50 liters. I designed it with non sharp branches, a cave, plants, and leaf litter mixture. After reading many comments of successfully keeping bumblebee gobies with figure-8 puffers in this forum and some other places online, I decided to give them a try. I got me a group of 6 bumblebee gobies.

However, today, after getting myself the gobies, I got confused while checking the pictures online. There are so many different species sold as bumblebee gobies!! And I cannot tell if mine are pure freshwater bumblebee goby ( Brachygobius xanthomelas ) or some other species that can go into a brackish tank.

The pics of B.Ocelot in the Glasser article looks very much like my fish but I cant be sure. I'd like to hear about any opinions to not risk introducing potentially a freshwater fish to a brackish, or ideally brackish water fish to a pure freshwater. I wanted to ask here ask people seemed to be experienced with bumblebee gobies as a popular tankmate option for figure-8s.

The pics:

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49343880-C7C1-4BFF-B94D-7DF5441AD1FA.jpeg.8a10ae8e60a43a7839be75d0f131bc14.jpeg

The closest pic I have ever seen was belong to B. Ocelot:

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I would appreciate if anyone can help. I wouldn't want to risk a pure freshwater species into a brackish tank by mistake.
Some links I found useful but I need further help to decide which species it is exactly to not make any mistake in the long term. Thanks

https://www.aquariumglaser.de/en/tag/bumblebee-goby/

https://tanninaquatics.com/blogs/the-ti ... lebee-goby

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=e ... ment&btnG= (starts on page 50)


I also have 50x50x50 cube/125 Liters tank I can use for the puffer. I am considering it potentially as a better alternative to add maybe more than one figure 8 or add a couple mollies? I am just hesitant of potential aggression, the tails looked damaged in the store.
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Second question is:

I read the puffer feeding guide and the figure 8 article here. However I am curious about parasites. How to prevent potential parasites for fish? Is freezing good enough to kill parasites if you buy something, like shrimp, for sale fresh? Are frozen food options in the markets, not frozen fish food, are safe to feed in terms of parasites?

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Third question is about mollys. Is there any issues between keeping adult mollies and figure-8 puffers and/or bumblebee gobies? I hear different experiences on this one.m when I read the forum so I cant be sure if I should try 2-3 mollies. Mollies are known to be a bit robust and can be a bit bullies if not kept in a crowded group. My tank at best may home a few for the look and ideally keeping my puffer feel better and safer as a dither I think. I dont want him to feel lonely and bored. It has been glass surfing at LFS nonstop unlike any others. I brought him home to give him a better home, but he is keeping the same behavior. I know in a new tank it is normal to be stressed but it ate well. I am just curios if mollies would be "dithers" if we can call that really.

Thanks everyone in advance,

Lennie

[Pufferpunk]

They do appear to be the BW BBGs.
Freezing is best & then I thaw in room-temperature water with a few drops of fish vitamins (ie: Vita-Chem).
I find mollies to be mean bullies. Here's a good article on BW tankmates that I helped write: https://badmanstropicalfish.com/brackish-aquarium/

[Lennie]

They do appear to be the BW BBGs.
Freezing is best & then I thaw in room-temperature water with a few drops of fish vitamins (ie: Vita-Chem).
I find mollies to be mean bullies. Here's a good article on BW tankmates that I helped write: https://badmanstropicalfish.com/brackish-aquarium/

Hello there,

Thank you for the response. So far so good, he is doing pretty well. An actual water puppy. I checked the remaining ones at LFS after a week, and I am so glad I got this baby on day one of arrival. They sadly looked bad. My friend actually wanted to gift me a f8 before I get this guy, but when I saw this one at my LFS I had to buy it. I believe that sometimes we bond with the fish and it was one of these moments for me.

It has a very light ich situation going on for the last 5 days or so, but I am slowly increasing the salinity to not damage cycle and already ich barely seem to survive or can multiply even. I bet it will be eliminated when I reach 1.005 as recommended here, as ich usually can be treated with 2-3ppt, at worst I have seen 5ppt. 1.005 is something like 6.6ppt, if I am not mistaken

So far I tried two different types of earthworms, pest snails and white worms. It loves them all. I will try to visit a super market and buy frozen shrimp and mussels To enrich the diet.

Yea mollies are kinda known to be bullies. And to be fair, at least for me, hard to find a healthy stock. Also I have read a few bad experiences of puffer attacking mollies after some time, so I am hesitant to try. In fact, I decided not to increase the tank size as I dont wanna keep mollies. They look find as they are with the goby-f8 combo.

Almost totally quit the glass surfing. But stress and transportation procedure and so on probably cause it to have lower immunity

Thanks for the link, I will check it out.

[8DiagramPoleFighter]

I’m Johnny come lately but I keep F8 with a group of Bumblebee Gobies and grass shrimp that I added as feeder treats that wound up being friends with F8. The shrimp have bred tons of times. I assume the littles get eaten. Bumblebees are the perfect tankmates.