The Puffer Forum

Hi all,
I joined some time ago and got 2 dwarf puffers.. sadly the 'fear' that they were both boys may have been true as one dissappeared . I still have one left and he's doing fine - named him Hannibal after the other one went.

But, I'm thinking a 2' tank for one dwarf puffer is a bit daft... so am wondering if I could add anything that would be compatible with Hannibal, I don't want him hurt or for him to hurt again.

I have a 3' tank with leopard bush fish, a red tail shark (not suitable i know), corydoras, bristle nose plecs, and 2 dwarf gourami's. I don't suppose anything is suitable from there, but thought i'd mention them. The leopard bush fish would eat the puffer as they are fully grown so definately not an option! lol

I had kuhli loaches with mine. I love kuhli loaches. Others have had success with ottos.

Thanks will have a look around for some locally. Would be nice to see more activity in there!

Just remembered, the loaches need sand, I added mine after the puffers so I just changed half the substrate to sand. They're really cute little things but like all others, make sure to do your research first

have already been googling! i never buy a fish without finding out if it'll 'go' with what I have, it's just not fair.
Thanks for the heads up on sand. will bear it in mind.

I keep three striped Kuhli's, three oto's and about five ghost shrimp in my tank with 8 dp's. No problem so far. The dp's pretty much stay on one side and the oto's on the other. The Kuhli's mostly only come out at night. The kuhli's are so pretty and fun to watch. Sand is a must! I would love more kuhli's in the tank, when they come out they act crazy! You should try to google some videos of them! They keep the sand really clean of the dp's "left overs".

I have 5 black khulis with my 3 DPs and 3 otos in a 29g. I'll be adding a few more otos when I find some in stock. My kuhlis don't really dig in the sand all that much as I have several broken flower pots and many other hiding places for them. They come out pretty often especially when food hits the water for the puffers...They must have excellent sense of smell. I keep looking for a few stripped ones but I've had no luck.

If you do get kuhlis watch out for your filter intake. 2 of mine found there way in to my AC70 so I had to cover the strainer with a biomax media bag.

Good luck


Oh yeah; I have 4 ghost shrimp in there to without any problems at all.

Their sense of smell IS amazing! I can drop food at one end of my 55g and they will immediately come out of hiding from the other end. I watch them a lot and it always looks as though they are sniffing around for food. I drop algae wafers in on occasion and they love feasting with the oto's!