The Puffer Forum

I just set up my first FOWLR and picked up my first porcipine puffer. Im wondering what are some good tankmates. He is a baby and i have hin in a 55g but will soon be moving him to my 100g when i upgrade my reef. Will they get along with a dwarf puffer?

dwarf puffers are freshwater fish so the answer is no he will not .

Sorry My local fish store his them listed as dwarf puffers but i was refering to GSP

Hi Dre and welcome to the puffer forum. 125 gl min tank size for just the porcipine puffer, (should be ok in the 100gl if you make sure to keep up on the water changes). Unfortunately with the 100gl size you will not be able to have any tank mates.

kinda offsubject, but what does FOWLR mean?

Fish Only With Live Rock.

I agree with trekenk. A 100 would probably be ok, if you did have a 25 or more gallon sump. But probably not anything else in there. And your GSP's would end up being 6" long, and aggressive. I dont know how it would get along with the porc, There was an incident recently with a GSP that started nipping at a stars and stripes after living together for a while.

I'd go woth a tomato clownfish. They might even become buddies. Then again, the puffer could just eat it--you just never know with a puffer.

Its generally one soft and one spiny puffer.

It should work but those would be the only fish you could have. I would get some more other fish to add some more life to your tank.

Pufferpunk wrote:I'd go woth a tomato clownfish. They might even become buddies. Then again, the puffer could just eat it--you just never know with a puffer.

What about Maroon clowns?
Those are awsome

My buddy wants to give me a sea ucrhant , would that be a problem?

This was just talked about recently here that puffers eat sea ucrhant's so this might end up as food.

We've had good luck with clowns and angelfish as tankmates for porcs in a 100 gal. reef tank over the past 15 years. Also, porcupines seem to get along with blue tangs. Never had a problem with sea urchins either - we keep 4 in with Puffito. The only tankmate problems were with gobies which Puffito considered to be lunch. Also, keeping two porcs together seems to work as long as they are both the same size.

Puffito wrote:We've had good luck with clowns and angelfish as tankmates for porcs in a 100 gal. reef tank over the past 15 years. Also, porcupines seem to get along with blue tangs. Never had a problem with sea urchins either - we keep 4 in with Puffito. The only tankmate problems were with gobies which Puffito considered to be lunch. Also, keeping two porcs together seems to work as long as they are both the same size.

Puffito I think you should explain to Dre that you don't keep your porc when it does get big. Sorry but keeping a full grown blue tang in with full grown porc puffer in a 100gl would be over stocked.

trekenk wrote:

Puffito wrote:We've had good luck with clowns and angelfish as tankmates for porcs in a 100 gal. reef tank over the past 15 years. Also, porcupines seem to get along with blue tangs. Never had a problem with sea urchins either - we keep 4 in with Puffito. The only tankmate problems were with gobies which Puffito considered to be lunch. Also, keeping two porcs together seems to work as long as they are both the same size.

Puffito I think you should explain to Dre that you don't keep your porc when it does get big. Sorry but keeping a full grown blue tang in with full grown porc puffer in a 100gl would be over stocked.

True enough. I find a new home for porcs over 8-9 in. and for blue tangs 0ver 6 in. The other tankmates (e.g., clowns, angels and blennies) are much smaller. Since I buy the porcs and tangs as juveniles, they're typically with me for at least five years.

As long as you have adequite size, and compatable puffers it shouldn't be a problem. i have a GSP in with my porc and the two get along really well. As my GSP is a loner and doesn't bother anything, and the porc had been kept with another large puffer. I also provided the GSP with lots of caves that the larger porc can not fit into just in case. I've got in there also a maroon clown, and a niger trigger. It might not work for you, but so far I've had no issues whatsoever except when I had a tang, it harassed my little GSP and was, in turn, harassed by the other fish. I took him out and all aggression in the tank stopped. It is good to get them young though, And to make sure there are plenty of places for them to establish territory.

My clown has the far left side of the tank with the formost rock, my trigger keeps to the left/central behind the rocks, the porc goes where he wills but usually is in the middle range. The GSP stays in the front.