The Puffer Forum

Okay...I know this is real stupid...but here's the deal:

Joey's 38 gallon is getting about 30 mins of direct sunlight every day on one corner of the tank. The algae is covering my anubias, and the nerites ain't gettin it done, and neither are water changes and a phosphate pillow. I can't move the tank right now, so I am gonna try to keep Joey very well fed (which I do anyway) and put two ancistrus in the tank. Maybe if he eats one, the armored dining experience will be unpleasant enough that he'll grant the other a stay of execution...that's the plan, anyway.

Stay tuned.

welp good luck...............

He's a puffer, all they eat are armed foods......snails, crabs, crayfish. He will love it

Smashtoad wrote:Okay...I know this is real stupid...but here's the deal:

Joey's 38 gallon is getting about 30 mins of direct sunlight every day on one corner of the tank. The algae is covering my anubias, and the nerites ain't gettin it done, and neither are water changes and a phosphate pillow. I can't move the tank right now, so I am gonna try to keep Joey very well fed (which I do anyway) and put two ancistrus in the tank. Maybe if he eats one, the armored dining experience will be unpleasant enough that he'll grant the other a stay of execution...that's the plan, anyway.

Stay tuned.

brilliant plan Smashtoad...........

I added a pleco 2x the size of my Congo. all that was left was the skull in the morning.

Haha, makes me think of the guy at my LFS that sold me a sucker saying, "fahaka's just know they are boney and not very meaty... he won't touch it." I don't think the poor sucker lasted 10sec in the tank before getting gobbled.

Is there any way to block the lighting from the window (maybe a partial shade at the top if that's what's reaching?)

Seeing as a Congo puffer is a piscivore, I don't think your Ancistrus are going to last very long and I think it's a bit unkind to put them into a tank where they won't get killed all at once, but have pieces bitten out of them.

I have NEVER heard of a Congo not eating any species of fish. Eventually, he'll get him & it won't be pretty.

how bout adding a matching peice of backround to the side of the tank. PS use the clearview/seaview stuff works like a charm.

The bristlenose or any other pleco is not armed all over. They have a soft belly. And be sure: a puffer knows where the vulnerable part is. I have experienced it myself, when my abei took a chunk out of my L-001's belly. Luckily the wound healed cleanly (after I moved the pleco), and the fish survived.

When my Baileyi attacked my Congo (due to a badly installed divider in the tank), she got the Congo right in the soft part of the belly and just about removed all of it. There was no saving my poor Congo. I still feel badly about that one.

I think even if a piscivore seems okay with his tankmates, and you think all is well, one day the puffer is going to decide to have a bite, just because he can. And I think that's a shame to put in anything other than a feeder fish, and I would certainly not consider plecostomus' to be feeder fish.