The Puffer Forum

I just bought a blue toby for my 29 gallon biocube. I have a yellow dottyback in there now and I believe the puffer will be fine. I have some colars. Green Stars, Daisies, and Botton polyps. I also so have some Zoas ( not many ). There is a Fogspawn, Pulsing Xiena, Hairy and Green mushrooms. I am sure the Zoa's will be toast. I also have a Green Bubble Tip Nem. I have a standard clean up crew ( toast ). I got the Toby because my wife wanted one. So here is the main things I would like to know.

1. What corlas can I keep with this fish?
2. What kind of clean up crew will be ok?
3. If I add a clown ( Marron or Tomato ) will it be ok?
4. Should I just take it back now?

Hi!
I would see what the puffer does as far as what you have in there right now. Tobies can be nippers of corals, you just have to watch. I would remove the anemone because puffers are very curious creatures and a sting from an anemone can be deadly. They will be more apt to go for your zoas and star polyps more than anything.

You can try some cleaner shrimp in with your tank. I have had some success with peppermint shrimp but I think it depends on the puffer, you can add one and see what happens. If he leaves it alone then I am confident you will be able to add more. Just don't let toby get hungry because then the shrimp might become snacks.

Clown fish are all right to add. I would go with the Tomato Clown versus the Maroon because the Maroons are the most aggressive of the clown fish species. Of course get one a little bigger than Toby, to ensure he won't be lunch. There will be displays of dominance the first day or so but it should calm down.

It will all depend on whether you want to risk Mr. Toby possibly tasting your corals, on whether you keep him or not. I keep mine with leathers and mushrooms but my zoas are my babies and I don't want to risk having a chunk bit out of mine.

I hope this helps.

Thanks. He has not attacked the cleaner shrimp yet. It has been a day. He is nipping at my Zoa's. It looks like he is checking them out not eating them. The hermits are running for thier life and the snails are not even being touched at this time. What about star fish? The main reason I got him was to get along with my yellow dottyback I got. I was buying a yellow wrasse and found out after I turned him loose that he was a dotty. Now the only way to get him out is to take everything out . So I bought the puffer due to the fact that the dotty did not have a chance at killing him. My wife has always wanted a puffer and the timing was good. Does anyone else have anything on this?

The DottyBack will be fine. They are very hardy fish and and given a good amount of hiding space, they will retreat if they feel threatened. They should get along fine, just watch out for excessive nipping.

I will watch for thanks

Can you post some pics of your tank??

Yeah, let me get some tonight and I will post them on the 5th. Well the shrimp is still fine. One snail is gone. All the crabs and coral are fine as well. The puffer does not seem to want to mess with them. The gbt nem loves the krill that the puffer does not eat. Every thing seems okay. I do not think there will be any problems with the coral. Keep you posted.

I think your hermits should be fine. I have two tobies and never lost a single hermit to them. I think the shell is hard for them to chew through and the smart crabs bury themselves in the sand.

i will be waiting for those pics!!!

Here are some pics. The tank is only six weeks old. I am going to pic up some more rock and coral on Saturday. I will redo the aquascape then and retake some pics next week. This is a 29 gallon biocube and the Toby is full grown.

Sorry the pics are to large to load. What is up with that?

This suucks. The lowest I can reduce the files to is 336KB. The site is telling me they have to be 256KB. I can not reduce them to this size.

Have you tried to crop it first? This would make it a little smaller. I use Picture it to crop mine and then hit format, then resize to make it smaller. I don't know if you have any programs that will do it but it's something you can try.

Ihope this works now. Thanks for the info.

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