Looking to get my first puffer........suggestions please!

[willisrad]

Ok.
I am getting a 75 Gallon tank tomorrow, and I would like to house a puffer as well as a few other fish.

My girlfriend wants me to find a puffer that gets kind of large, and I would like to be able to have other fish in there with him.

I know that I need to heavily plant to aquarium and have a lot of hiding places, but is there a puffer that will work for what I am looking for?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks so much!

[Nick]

Most of the time adding other fish with puffers does not work. If they are as aggressive as the puffer, they are much faster and abuse it, either for fun or by eating all the food. If they are not, they are chomped on. There are stories of sucess, but far, far more of having to separate the fish or finding dead fish. Figure 8 puffers tend to be on the docile side, for puffers, but they will easily be bullied if other fish are larger or meaner because of there lack of speed, and they do best in water at SG 1.005 or so, so it would be a brackish tank and most tropical fish would not be options for tank mates. South american puffers are simular in size, but they require dental work every 6 months or so, so unless you are comfortable knocking a fish unconcious with clove oil and trimming it's beak to the right length(or paying someone knowledgeable to do it), they are not an option. Both species are smallish as well, under 3" generally.

[Pufferpunk]

I don't know of any larger puffers that willl accept tank mates.

[helicopter]

I just went through this whole process myself, I research everything I could find to find out what puffer I wanted to put in my 24 gallon nanocube. My criteria was that it had to be a puffer that was not nocturnal, was very personable and not completely salt water. I decided on a figure 8's. I am definitely happy with that choice. I keep them with a molly. I guess your choices are limit with brackish water puffers but you can keep molly's bumble bee gobies and mud skippers if you can provide dry terrian. It all depends on whether you are willing to go salt water.

[Hilly]

The problem you have is that your tank is sort of in the middle of the road in terms of size. It's a really big tank for some of the more common freshwater puffers and too small for the larger species. Brackish Puffers like the GSP and Ceylon get to a good size but that all depends on what you want to keep.

If it's marine your after someone else will have to answe r that.