The Puffer Forum

hi,

are there any bottom feeders i can put safely in my tank with my 3 F8 puffs?????

thanks

Not that I can think of, off the top of my head. Puffers are known to attack corys, plecos, and most other fish for that matter, although of course there are always exceptions. Your best bet is to just keep that siphon of yours handy.

There is a brackish water catfish but it grows very large, should be kept in schools and requires mid-high salinity as they get older so unfortunately incompatible with figure 8's

When I first got my pair of Ceylon puffers in a tank on their own, I noticed how messy they were and tried to find a bottom-feeder that would tolerate brackish conditions and I found out that, as Iliveinazoo stated, there is a catfish that lives in brackish water, but it grows very large and isn't conventional for an aquarium. That's when the good old tank vacuum comes in handy!!

Iliveinazoo wrote:There is a brackish water catfish but it grows very large, should be kept in schools and requires mid-high salinity as they get older so unfortunately incompatible with figure 8's

I think I have what you are talking about! Its a high-fin columbian bull shark. I had 3, however they were way to aggressive for my tank, and 2 always picked on one of them. After I went to one, the fish is always calm and just swims on the bottom. He eats ANYTHING he can fit in his mouth. He never bothers any of my fish, and neither my scat nor green spotted puffer bothers him. In terms of salinity, the scat and puffer are still fairly small, the shark is at 3 inches, and I have a reading on the hydrometer of 1.020. That fluctuates with water changes, but I keep it fairly high. The shark does grow fast though, so Im sure I will be getting rid of him soon because I dont want to get a larger tank.

FYI, a scat does eat off the bottom, and does a pretty good job. Its disgusting, but they eat feces. They also feed on flake food, krill, plankton, and anything else you can imagine.

In our tank with our 2 F8's we have bumblebee gobies. They leave each other alone and the gobies eat whatever the F8s don't