The Puffer Forum

can they all live happily ever after together?

^ i think your going to have to be a little more specific in order for any one to be able to give you a more definitive answer, like what crazy fish are you talking about, and when you mentioned dwarf, did you mean Dwarf Puffer? Last but not least tank size will also have to be accounted for...

Any way, welcome to the forum

What's a "crazy fish"?

ok im sorry.

crazy fish = crocodile fish
dwarf puffer and a pecock goby.

the tank is 30 gallons, and is getting planted. im just trying to find out exactly what i want in my tank.

i got my water tested yesterday, and everything is perfect.

... aren't crocodile fish strictly marine?

Edit: I'm getting 3940820394820 hits for crocodile fish. Do you have the latin name?

it says they live in marine, brackish, and fresh. but i wanted to add a little salt to the tank anyways to ward off paracites

Well, what kind were you going to get?
Dwarf puffers need about 3 gallons each..
Gobies need from 10-20 gallons each...
Crocodile fish need 30 gallons each...
You can get the crocodile fish only in that tank, but from what I've seen, they're EXTREMELY hard to keep alive.
Also, were you going to use aquarium salt? That stuff (in my eyes) is completely useless.

so thats maybe a no go on the crocodile fish... yeah i was going to use Kent marine salt. I have 3 salt water tanks and im new to fresh so i have NO idea what im doing. haha

i really want dwarf puffers, and i was looking into bumble bee gobies, but i know they are BW fish. regardless im going to add salt because i know it is benifical most fresh water fish, and i know the salt kills the paracites.

but like i said i have no idea what to do

Okay, let me just start by saying i'm no expert myself, but salt isn't always a welcome addition in a F/W tank unless absolutely necessary, so you may want to try and avoid putting any in ... as for stocking, you could maybe try keeping bubble bee goby's (although meant to be b/w) and otto's with some dwarf puffers... so maybe you could consider that as an option for a planted tank along with a few of the larger algae eating shrimp???

just my 0.2 cents

Agreed, adding salt "just because" is a waste of money and might not be healthy for the fish (depends on the species). Adding marine salt (completely different from aquarium salt) can be worse, because it contains a lot more than just sodium.. so for a fish that likes soft water, all the minerals will be quite uncomfortable.

Dwarf puffers do not like salt in their water, they don't do well in it. If you really want to go brackish and have some bumblebee gobies, I'd set up your tank with one Figure 8 and a couple of the gobies, and go brackish.. forget about the dwarf puffer (they like to be in groups anyways).

Proper quarentining and good health will prevent any external parasite problems.

I think that we need to straighten out the aquarium/marine salt thing.

Aquarium salt is a medication, used for external parasites, i.e. ich, with freshwater fish. Don't use it unless you actually know your fish have ich.

Marine salt is used to make water brackish or marine. Aquarium salt *does not* work for this purpose. Marine salt is not tolerated by freshwater fish. Salinity must be measured with a hydrometer or a refractometer.

The only reason that I know of to put FW fish into an environment with marine salt is if you're treating ich with "hypo," which is putting the fish into a dramatically different salinity to kill the parasites. If you ever have to do this, ask for some help and/or read up on old posts, since it's very easy to mess up!

Wow maybe I've been looking at the wrong crocodile fish when googling but those things are huge and vicious! I'd only keep that on it's own if it were me. It's also seems to find it hard to move round in a tank as it's not very flexible, looks like it'd need a very long and deep tank to swim and turn round in comfitably

My guess is you're talking about Butis.

Butis butis is sometimes called crazy fish, duck-billed gudgeon. Also called cabong by native peoples I read somewhere a long time ago. After the Congo puffer, it is my favorite fish. Likes salt, but can handle about any salinity if fat and happy. Here's a picture of the last one I had. No time to go into it here, but the fish is a master of camo, and not just in placement and color. They actively change shades of brown, black, etc...spots, stripes. And sometimes, as you see in the picture, you would swear there is a very weak light on inside of them. They swin sideways and upside down. They eat freeze dried krill pretty well too, so you don't always have to feed live.

Crocodile fish? Never heard them called that, but leave it up to wholesalers who only care about selling something to come up with ANOTHER stupid common name. Hope this helps. Congrats, that is an amazing fish.