The Puffer Forum

right,ive just sold my malawi cichlid tank, cos ive caught the puffer bug so wanting to get another puffer tank set up in here instead. its gonna b around 150litres.(not sure what that is in gallons lol!! )
anyways, what kind of freshwater puffers would you recommend for a tank this size? i dont want it to b dwarfs, or saps, because i have both those in other tanks, wanting something different for in here is there any smallish fw puffers that i could have a couple/few of in a tank that size??
any ideas will b a help even if i dont know much about the fish, im gonna have a good few weeks to learn while the new tank is cycling etc
cheers x

Hi, well first of all im glad you come back to puffers as i think they are more unique fish in my opinion and second of all 150 litres is about 40 US gallons.
Right there is the red eye puffers which you can get different ones, here is a website of the name where you can research on them which one you want.
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/puffers.htm
The fresh water puffers are the ones where it says '(FW)' at the side in origin section.
These are 3 of the red eye puffers..
Carinotetraodon irrubesco - Red-tailed Redeye puffer Asia (FW)
Carinotetraodon lorteti Lortet's - crested puffer Asia (FW)
Carinotetraodon salivator - Striped redeye/Zebra puffer Asia (FW)

They all grow to around 2" (5 cm) also active fish, they say best not to mix but i think the first to top ones are fine with each other, however i'm not too sure so you will have to research that, or if someone else corrects me right on here.
They need very planted tanks, there own cave and best to get more females than males to lose less aggression even though they are not that aggressive but can fin nip. I am getting the Carinotetraodon irrubesco Red-tailed Redeye puffer today later on, and she is selling to me 3 males and 3 females, and she said that they do completely fine together and no fights. Don't over stock with these though, they say have 1 red eye puffer every 5-10 gallons.
Hope this helps :p

Why don't you have a look in the PufferPedia? You may be surprised by the stocking advice there.

Also another thing try to make sure that you do get the Carinotetraodon irrubesco and not Carinotetraodon lorteti which in my opinion is best as community (Carinotetraodon irrubesco) even with a species tank. However not like the Carinotetraodon lorteti as they are far more aggressive fish and even to their own kind they kill each other (mainly males) and kill other tank mates that are in its sight.
So beware lol as they can look a like, which even expert shop keepers can get confused.

LilGreenPuffer wrote:Why don't you have a look in the PufferPedia? You may be surprised by the stocking advice there.

Yeah, not that I mind linking to outer sites but why bother? All the great pufferinfo you need is right here!

didz04 wrote:Hi, well first of all im glad you come back to puffers as i think they are more unique fish in my opinion and second of all 150 litres is about 40 US gallons.
Right there is the red eye puffers which you can get different ones, here is a website of the name where you can research on them which one you want.
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/puffers.htm
The fresh water puffers are the ones where it says '(FW)' at the side in origin section.
These are 3 of the red eye puffers..
Carinotetraodon irrubesco - Red-tailed Redeye puffer Asia (FW)
Carinotetraodon lorteti Lortet's - crested puffer Asia (FW)
Carinotetraodon salivator - Striped redeye/Zebra puffer Asia (FW)

They all grow to around 2" (5 cm) also active fish, they say best not to mix but i think the first to top ones are fine with each other, however i'm not too sure so you will have to research that, or if someone else corrects me right on here.
They need very planted tanks, there own cave and best to get more females than males to lose less aggression even though they are not that aggressive but can fin nip. I am getting the Carinotetraodon irrubesco Red-tailed Redeye puffer today later on, and she is selling to me 3 males and 3 females, and she said that they do completely fine together and no fights. Don't over stock with these though, they say have 1 red eye puffer every 5-10 gallons.
Hope this helps :p

Hi, I believe I am the person you are talking about that you are getting the redeyes from.
I'm glad that you're here on The Puffer Forum, because there's lots of good information here.

I just wanted to say a couple things. I have 4 different redeye species in the same tank. I have irrubesco, lorteti (1 male, 3 females) 2 salivators (2 males) and now I've recently acquired a Borneensis male. I must say that I have not witnessed any aggression other than the males chasing one another from their respective territories, which most puffers do anyway. I think the type of tank that these fish go into make a world of difference. I try and keep my tanks well planted, so the puffers have lots of hiding places and therefore feel secure and can get away from being chased. None of my redeye puffers has killed one another, and mostly I think they are aggressive towards their own species more than other species. I know most literature says not to mix them, but how do we know which puffers get on if we don't ever try? I have always been prepared to remove any of my puffers if there was serious aggression and so far, there's been none. I'm certainly not saying that everyone should go out and get all the redeye species and throw them together, but so far, with mine, it's all worked out rather well. So I think the lorteti species is getting a bit of a bad rep, as I've got the one male and 3 females and like I said, never found any of my redeye puffers dead. So you can't always believe every single thing you read in a book.

thanks for ur help everyone looks like im gonna b spending the next few weeks learning as much as i can about the irrubesco sounds like thats the 1 for me