The Puffer Forum

Hi, just like to thank people who helped me out on my other thread. I have decided on just Fig 8s and Bumblebee Gobies which I now have. I have tried to make there as much hiding places as possible with a massive Java Fern and a smaller one, along with some fake and a mound of rock. My current stocking is;

5x Fig. 8's
14x BBG's
7x Molly, (6 of which are 1" fry)
1x Sole
4x Nerite Snails
Ton of Cherry Shrimp

The Puffers are very strange fellas but brilliant. I have BBG's that are smaller than an inch and the Puffers are probably between 2 and 3" and they pay them no attention at all, or the molly fry. They do however chase the Cherry shrimp and go crazy for them even though some of them are 3 times the size of the BBG's. Its madness, they don't even look at the Nerites either. I am gonna try and get pictures up but cant find the charger for my camera and my phones not too good. I will try and get them up as soon as possible.

That must be a fairly big tank! Pics would be good!

Yea i'd love to see this.

Just to touch on something you said, I have nerite snails in one of my tanks, which has a few puffers in it, and they do not bother those snails at all, but if I put ramshorn snails in, they immediately go for them and snap them up! I think it's odd how they don't bother the nerite but seem to go crazy for the ramshorn.

Your tank sounds really cool, I'd love to see some photos ... especially with all those BBG's that you've got. I love gobies of any sort, they are one of my favourite type of fish, and that's because I am very fond of mudskippers, which of course are related.


Photo, photos, photos, photos, photos, photos, photos, photos, photos ..... please!

I promise to get photos as soon as I sort this camera The tank is 6x2x2 (180 gal). I am hoping to add more BBG's, probably around 30-40 but I hadn't thought it through properly and I'm pretty sure adding them now means the puffers may see them as food? Any ideas on how to do this?

As for the snails, this tank has a decent sand bed and was transferred over from a smaller tank. This meant that a few MTS came with it. Obviously theres about 100 now, and I have seen a few of the smaller ones eaten. They are all feeding well though on a mixture of; Bryne Shrimp (although this wasn't strictly for them), Mussels, Prawns, and Squid, they love the latter.

Just to let you know--my F8s ate all but 1 adult molly (plenty of adults used to be in there) & all my BBGs.

Yeah, I am worried about this, thing is, at the moment they just dont seem to view fish as food. I have watched BBG's stealing food from them a lot so far, they just completely ignore them. The Molly fry too seem to be totally ignored. The shrimp on the other hand, well, they go mad when they see them. I know its early days, and I was worried as they were bigger than I wanted but they do seem accustomed to prepared food and shrimp only at the moment, and given their size it would surprise me if that changed. Well thats a hopeful wish more than anything

I've never seen them eat anyone--just come up missing...

Unfortunately it does seem a reasonable conclusion this will happen. As I said I was hoping to get babies but when they turned up they are close to fully grown. I thought with the babies I had a shot if they grew up together. Some of the Gobies are tiny too, less than an inch easy.