The Puffer Forum

I have a 30 gallon heavily planted tank. Inhabitants are 2 ottos, 2 Siamese Algae Eaters, 4 Endler's livebearers, 6 cardinal tetras, 3 amano shrimp and at least 5 cherry shrimp. And a lot of snails. The tank is planted with lots of cover, a big piece of bogwood covered in moss, mangrove wood here and there. It's pretty dense and it's not even fully grown in.

I really love the dwarf puffer and would love to add one or two to this setup. Is it a recipe for disaster?

All depends really on the individual puffers you end up with. They could ignore everything or go after everything. I would think your shrimp might come under attack. People have kept Otos with them before successfully. The snails and their babies are good as a plentiful supply of in tank food. Anything a bit stupid or long finned and not very fast moving may become the victim of fin nipping or worse.

One of my DPs killed and ate a good bit out of an almost full size SAE.

I would not, unless you plan on doing some stocking changes.

SAE's get pretty big and are fast moving fish, I don't like to see them in any tank smaller than 4ft long at a minimum. They are just too active to be in small tanks IMO.

And the other big one, if you have even a single female endler, you will soon have hundreds. My friend gave me some last summer, a few males and a female, and my 33 gallon tank is completely infested with them. They breed insanely, you just can't stop them.

Dwarf puffers will certianly hunt down red cherries, they'd love it! I got away with it in an extremely heavily planted tank, but the shrimp population took a big hit when I added the dwarf puffs. If you spent a lot or looked a long time for your shrimp (they are more common now than they used to be), adding puffers to the tank would not be a good idea, unless you like your puffers to have expensive snacks.

I never had endlers and dwarf puffers together, so I can't tell you if they'd be a good or bad mix, but I wouldn't try it unless you removed the SAE's and any female endlers. Or the tank will be too overstocked shortly to add a sensitive puffer to the mix.

There are a number of people in my aquarium club who are trying DPs in diverse community tanks, myself included. One of the guys has had them in with endlers for a few months now with no problems. Myself and another member each have one in a very diversely stocked, 90 gallon tanks, with tons of plants, rock caves and bogwood. So far so good for everyone. In my tank I am keeping a good population of snails and this seems to be taking up most of my DPs time. He is constantly hunting. So I really think that it has a lot to do the individual DP and ensuring that they are well fed. I feed mine bloodworms regularily and I make sure that he gets his fair share by waiting until he is in an area on his own and putting them right infront of him with an eye-dropper. Worst case it doesn't work and you add another tank to your house!

Jeff

I had 2 Dps in my community tank w bloodfin tetras and a ghost knife also gouramis and a albino frog also a cat fish ,,,,for a while it was ok then one day the mean one (Dp) straight out ate and I feel enjoyed a gourami and he bossed (and stressed) everything in the tank accept the 7inch knife fish ...short version I brought the mean one back to my lfs and the other Dp has had no problems at all with any of the other fish ..In fact he seems quite courtious during feedings and ive never seen him even think of nipping at others....My thoughts are they deffinitly have personalitys its kinda hit or miss.......Good luck