The Puffer Forum

This question popped into my head today as I was working on my tanks doing water changes, and I was curious what other people thought about this, all hypothetical of course.

If I had a 6-foot tank, let's say more than 150 gallons for the sake of this argument, and I wanted to put my 3 Ceylons, plus my 2 GSP's in this tank, could it work? Before I got the bigger tank set up, I had my 2 Ceylons in the same tank with my GSP's and although there was a big difference in the sizes of the two, I never had any problems, but I also knew they were only together for a week or so. I'm just wondering, since they are sort of in the same family (aren't they?) and they both accept the same salinity, could they co-exist in the same tank if it were big enough?

As I said at the beginning, this is purely hypothetical, I'm not moving anyone at this time, but it's just something I was thinking about. Obviously if the Ceylons could not co-exist with the GSP's, then I would not put them together and there's no reason to, as both are happy where they are. It's more a curiosity thing, and I wanted to know what other people thought about it.

Thanks.

my 12' is 250 gallons, unless your talking UK gallons ... which I have no idea that would roughly equal 125 gallons - some for actual usable water volume

Don't forget that height and depth vary.

I wasn't being precise because it's still just a hypothetical question at this point .... but I realise that tanks differ depending on dimensions.

that would have to be over 2.5 feet deep. at 6 feet, that is 3/4 inch glass if there are no reinforcements.

for the sake of arguement that is a wall to wall tank, that leaves some argin of error. You could put a divider in if it doesn't work out and still have some elbow room

The actual tank doesn't exist, it wasn't the tank size I was concerned with .... could be a bit bigger, but I was just curious if the two species would get along in a bigger tank long term with no problems.

Hehe. Screw the devil, JP's in the details

Off the top of my head, my first and best advice would be negative especially if these fish are approaching a year old or older . Puffers cohabit best if reared together, preferably from the very beginning , and even better if already co-housed as young juveniles at the LFS. Trying to move sexually mature puffers into shared housing is an invitation to conflict. I have never gotten that to work, even when the fish had been in a divided US 180 (6'x2';x2'). Territorial instincts come into play early and I have been able to overcome those.

I do think we have had photos and reports of Ceylons and GSPs together here on this forum (you might try a forum search for the posts), but so far as I can remember it was from fish co-housed at the LFS and reared together after mistaken ID. In my limited experience with them, Ceylons are or tend to be more laid-back fish than GSPs, even though they may well be obviously larger - which would usually be a key factor, but may not in this pairing.

I knew it was a theory question ... it was the housing that I was conscerned wih ... I don't know compatability... thus the divider suggestion

besides that combo would be 140 gallons... min ... depending on how tall the tank was +/- actual water usage

Thank you RTR, that's what I was looking for. It's not something I'm eager to do, just something that came into my mind and I was curious about. There's no reason I need to put them together and I don't think it's something I'm going to try, I was only wondering if the pairing would work, and/or if anyone else had done this. Both of my species are fine where they are .... so I don't think I will be trying to put them together.

I raised 2 GSPs & a Ceylon together from juvies, until they got too large for the 55g. All got along great.

For puffers (less so for Cichlids, IME)) the early co-housing somehow blocks the mature territoriality seen between adults - at least among several species. GSPs and Ceylons are awfully similar. We have seen too many reports like PP's to doubt it. But even that is not a sure thing 100% of the time I've had a lot of problems with F-8s similarly co-housed. It does seem to work though. This pretty much has to be an artifact of captivity. Other than SAPs, you just don't see many reports of adult groups in the wild.