The Puffer Forum

I was wondering if either of these species can be kept with Tiger Barbs/Green Barbs? I've been wanting Barbs for quite a while, but I would also like to get a couple Salivators or Irrubescas. They would be going into a 55 gallon (48" x 12" x 18") that I'd likely decorate fairly heavily. I'm trying to decide what to put in it, and would likely prefer FW to anything else (well, I'd love SW, but yeah).

Any ideas?

quoting the PufferPedia:

Common Name: Red Tailed Redeye Puffer
Personality/Temperament: Very mixed. Some individuals can be very aggressive, others can be very timid. Territorial.
Other Notes: These puffers become very active under dark and require a heavily planted tank with lots of decor and hiding places. Some have been succesfully kept with their own species and C.travancoricus/C.asellus, whilst others have killed everything in sight

it says the Salvitor is just straight up agressive...

If you are going to get Salivator and if you can find them then you really need to be thinking a bigger group than a few. 6-7 mainly females with 12 male then fast moving dither fish should be OK. If you get a TIger barb thats thinks he's the daddy of the tank, it could stress out the puffers until they release on him. A well balanced group of barbs without the problem barb that dont bother much else could work.

Taly has had success with keeping tiger barbs with a salivator pair. But that salivator male is a very nice one - not much aggressivity in that fish. I wouldn't have tried that with my salivator. He seems very timid, but I know he is a killer (killed his own wife before I bought him).

I have a 240l tank with 6 tigerbarbs, 6 corys and a pair of salivator.
It's working out great!
Maybe I'm just lucky... If you should ever keep a salivator pair , always have a plan B.
But one thing is clear to me: the salivators don't harm other fishes, they don't care about them.
The irrubesco... well... I can't have other fishes with them

This is just my experience.

And a problem I have with Tigerbarbs and puffers is the feedingtime... The tigerbarbs gets much food!

Awesome! Thanks for the information. I'll have to ask some of the LFS if they can get Salivators in. They're pretty good with special orders, but we'll see.

Remember the plan B!!