The Puffer Forum

I'm finally going to write up an article on GSP tankmates for my website. I was curious to know what experience everyone here has had with GSP tankmates. The good and the bad.

I need the tanksize, number of GSPs, s.g., tankmates, and how long they've been together. And then the outcome.

Thanks.

I haven't observed any troubles with mixing young GSP with F8's, so long as they're separated once their SG needs diverge, which will also prevent the GSP's from bullying once they are larger.

because my GSP is still young and in a very low salinity, he was with goldfish and everything was fine until the goldfish which were at least 3 times his size started picking on him. Bad mix.
I have a Pleco in with him now and he doesn't even notice him. he cleans up after him so is a big help.

Your pleco would be beter off with the GF--he won't appreciate any salt at all.

Some sort of Loach - bad experience. the loch kept bugging chomper... the loach swam all around the tank very fast and would frequently bump into chomper - chomps would be sleping and the stupid loach would wake him up. we took out the loach after about a few hours.

we had a guppy with him for the first few months - when i went to remove it and put it in the community tank, i dropped it back in for a quick moment and chomps rushed over and ate it! - afte being friendly to it for months - weird

3 tiger barbs - were great ! but now there's salt, so i dont know if they would be okay in there.
but yea, they were in with chomper for about 3 months ? and then we went to take them out and put them in another tank - but again,,,, dropped one back in the tank by accident, and chomper swam right over and ate it !

1 small 3 spotted gourami - great little buddy didn't cause any problems, but again the salt... we had to take him out.

a molly - kept bugging chomps. the molly actually kept pecking at chomps and following him around. chomps look annoyed so we took out the molly in less than an hour.

now it's chomper and a guppy with a nice big pretty tail.

Chomper has NEVER nipped at any fins

That's our GSP's experience with tank mates !

I have a molly with Hootey. but he's kinda a pansy. the mollie steals his food sometimes.

I got the molly cause it was prego and he didn't eat the fry, so now I have a bunch of mollies, but I'm putting them in my 55...

Obviously, you don't want to include any FW fish. I don't believe any mollies will not be killed eventually by the puffer. I actually fed a large bully sailfin that was picking on my F8s, to my 2 adult GSPs.

As stated in my GSP article, I suggest raising them to adulthood & then adding fast-moving marine fish, like damselfish or wrasses. Tons of decor with small areas the puffers cannot fit into is recommended, so the fish can get away from them if necessary.

I had a bad experience with a maroon clown. It ate the puffer's tails down to a stump. I had a large tomatoe clown that lasted over a year with them & died suddenly for no reason.

When I first got my f8 and gsp I knew nothing about puffers and I had all my fish in one tank (before I knew they need marine salt) I had some glow fish, bumblee goby, some algee eaters and I even had an angle fish in there!! He is still alive after being with my puffer for over a month with all his fins intacted but I removed all the fish except the algee eaters and the goby ( my sister didn't want the algee eaters so I have no where to put them for now) they seem to be doing fine with my f8. Both my f8s are very mild they never go after anything except food and they seem happy! Now I know not to add any other non brackish fish to the tank thanks to this forum!

Pufferpunk wrote:As stated in my GSP article, I suggest raising them to adulthood & then adding fast-moving marine fish, like damselfish or wrasses. Tons of decor with small areas the puffers cannot fit into is recommended, so the fish can get away from them if necessary.

Agreed. GSPs are one of the rare types of fish that go from FW to SW eventually. Maybe Monos or something similar, but that's why I don't get GSPs or F8s.

Jase wrote:I have a molly with Hootey. but he's kinda a pansy. the mollie steals his food sometimes.

I got the molly cause it was prego and he didn't eat the fry, so now I have a bunch of mollies, but I'm putting them in my 55...

scratch that bit about him not eating fry... my mom made me get out the breeder net (it's not nice to allow such things...)

Pfffft! The world is all about baby-eating! It's part of nature!

I've attempted to put 5 Balloon Mollies with my two Ceylons (similar to GSPs)... First one died within 2 hours (poor fella, she was my favourite), second one died by the morning (Pickles had brutally murdered him), and I took out the other two. There's one left because I couldn't catch him, but oddly enough, he's never had his fins nipped and manages to sneak pieces of food once in a while. Since he's a Balloon Molly (ie. a horrible mutant fish - which I didn't know about until after I bought them), I don't imagine he'll ever bother my two puffers, and will probably not last very long anyways (due to the excessive inbreeding required to get Balloon Mollies).

I also have a Knight Goby in with my two Ceylons, and they get along great. I'm in the process of finding him a new home, though, as I know he doesn't enjoy higher salinities, and my puffers love it.

... Oh, and Bumblebee Gobies didn't last very long with my puffers, but they were impossible to catch after I put them in...

Thanks for all the help everyone. I'll be staying at my Grandma's this weekend so I'll have plenty of time to write it up, as there won't be anything else to do T_T

otocinclus catfish are great! I had 3 in with 3 GSP.