The Puffer Forum

My Ceylon Puffer is about to reach full marine in the next few weeks and when he does I am going to add some Live rock to his tank and I know this is not ideal but I just wanted your views on the possibility of adding a couple of Marine tankmates????

What do you reckon, is it a definate no or a maybe???? Do I push the bounderies or not???

Depends on what size tank he's in, tankmates will certainly work with a ceylon.

He's in 50 Gallons....The tank is well filtered with 2 Filters.. a wet & dry system and a Fluval4 Internal...I thought mabye 2 small Marine fish??? ....any recomendations??

A few clowns would work nicely.

Well, anything you add will be a risk. Have you ever fed your Ceylon live feeders or tried keeping any fish with it?

With the live rock, there'd be places for the tankmates to hide, but what's the point of adding them if they're going to hide all the time, right?

You could try it, but there would be no guarentees.

If you are going to try anything, make sure you have a back up plan. I'd never put any other fish with our ceyclons. They are just too mean.

Although this is a bit more expensive to do, it might be worth considering if you really want SW fish with your Ceylons. Set up a separate tank (another 50 gallon or something), or switch your Ceylon to a temporary tank at the same salinity, and set up the tank you want to use at the end as a full marine tank. Cycle things with the live rock and whatnot (you'll have to read up on it, as I'm definitely not an expert) and try to get a nice Anemone set up. After the Anemone starts to thrive, find a pair of clownfish, and add them to your tank. This will allow them to get used to the tank and (hopefully) settle into the Anemone. After they have settled in (say 1-2 weeks, or maybe more, you'll have to wait for more info), you can transfer your Ceylon over. The Anemones should provide the clowns with protection should your Ceylon ever try to full-out attack them.

That's my plan of attack for when my two Ceylons hit full marine!

Some clowns are quite mean, and territorial about their host.

I have a hard time imagining a sensitive anenome surviving in a tank with a messy, waste producing puffer. They are hard enough to keep alive as it is...

Going back to the clownfish, I agree with Spoot.. my girl is pretty dang mean (maroon clown). She attacks me any time I put my hand in there. I think its hilarious. But one chomp from a larger puffer could easily tear her in half, and that's all it takes.

Unfortunately, I'm still going to try her with Paris, because my only options are taking her to a store or going in with Paris. Plans are to set the tank up, introduce the clown first and let her learn everything (hiding places, etc), then introduce Paris. Hopefully it will work, Paris is quite a big chicken when it comes down to it and learned very quickly what is food and what is not (my fingers!). Dang, I need to get moving on this project...