The Puffer Forum

I used to keep a 90 gallon reef tank that I gave up about 6 years ago. I am ready to get back into the game. My wife loves puffers and wanted an all puffer tank. I know they can be agressive but if I go with a 75 gallon hex and live rock, would it be possible to keep 5-6 puffers (Canthigaster, since they max out at ~3 inches). I know that having 2 would likely cause aggresion problems, but wondered if in larger groups they would be able to coexist?

Thanks.

Which canthigaster specifically? their are a few species and i'm sure they each have different attitudes. thats the thing with puffers. you cant really classify their personalities by species. each puffer has their own personalily and how they are gonna mix is all gonna depend on the puffer. but i would just wait for someone who has more knowledge of the marine puffers by species and maybe they can help more. like i said just try and name a couple of specific canthigaster species that you might be interested in that way they might give you better information on those specific species and not a entire genus as a whole.

Hi,

I do not think we are committed to any particular puffer....we would probably prefer something with color such as Honeycomb Puffer
(Canthigaster janthinoptera) , Blue Dot Puffer (Canthigaster epilamprus) , or Saddle Puffer (Canthigaster sp.). We would be willing to consider other species outside Canthigaster as well. We really just have a vision of 4-6 puffers in the same tank. Now, if possible, the trick is seeing if we can find a single species or combination of species that can handle this situation. If not, oh well, it was a nice dream...but we do want to really explore this and make it happen if we can come up with a fairly solid plan.

Thanks.

You may be able to keep two puffers in a 75 gallon tank. Not 5-6. With high bio-loads and not enough areas for blocked lines of site there will be much aggression and you will definitely lose some puffers. If you want to go with a large amount of puffers, I would look into a tank much larger...like a 500+ gallon.

Well, the 500 gallon tank won't work......the spot is perfect for a 75 gallon hex. My previous experience leads me to believe if I were to restrict to species no more than 3-4 inches, with plenty of live rock, the bioload should be ok for 4-5 fish. It sounds like the real problem will be real estate. If I understand what you are saying, they will not share that size of a tank. There are cetain species (not puffers, apparently) that do not get along with only 2 fish of the same species...if you go up in numbers from there, then the aggression goes away....but it sounds like you feel that this scenerio will not work for any marine species of puffers?

I kept a bluespot & Valentini together with no problem.

part of the bioload is attributed to how messy they are too. so even though in theory you could have more, one fish makes as much waste as two or three other fish.

I was just wondering has anyone kept Canthigaster rostrata? I believe you could have three of these if they were to get along, and I'm guessing you live in/near bonaire, so these would be easier to get a hold of?

pp feel free to hit me if I'm making bad suggestions..

I've seen a dogface, stars and stripes, porc, cowfish, and a papuan (I think thats what it was) all together in a tank probablly around 120 gallons, it was at an aquarium though.

120? just one of the large puffers needs that, don't they?

Yeah they do, none of them were full grown, the S&S was pretty big though. They are an aquarium so I guess they have plans for them (and really good filtration)