The Puffer Forum

I saw someone keeping an f8 with balloon mollies. would three balloon mollies and an f8 work in a 30 gal. also I know that keeping multiple puffers makes them less personable. is this also true if you keep them with other fishes?

I think they probably wouldn't swim very well to get out of the way of pufferteeth.

I've also heard that some F8's get picked on by Balloon Mollies.

Definitely by sailfins.

then what can I put with him/her? also will tank mates make it less sociable?

Probably will. If you must get mollies, go with the regular ones. Black being the most hardy.

A lot of people go with bumblebee gobies. They are small and quick so they work pretty good with f8s.

Bumblebee gobies are small and like the same foods as F-8s, so serve as cleaners of leftovers in the F-8 tank. I don't like mollies in the F-\8 tank, but I had hair algae issues I would likely consider a smallish black male/ I would not use females due to offspring production.

I figured the fry would make good puffersnacks, which they did. So did the BBGs.

I can vouch for the puffer snacks, I put a few molly fry into my puffers tank just to hold them while I completely redid my little tank for snails and such. I was planning on taking the mollies to my LFS so someone could give them a home, especially one where people like them (I hated my mollies lol). When I went to take them out, Mr. Puffer had eaten all but the one that was originally in his tank. It was quite humorous to me.

I put a molly in with my gsp, it was supposed to be temporary. He was supposed to eat some algae, and I wanted to know how Balki would react to a tank mate. After the algae had gotten to some manageable level, I took the molly out. Balki didn't notice for about an hour, then he was so upset when he couldn't find him, he paced around the entire day looking for his little orange buddy. I waited a little while to see if he would calm down, finally I put him back in and he then resumed his normal activities once he gave the molly a once over.
So I'm stuck with this stupid molly because Balki decided they are bff's .

That is pretty awesome. I didn't know puffers behaved this way. I'll have to see if I can put two half grown mollies in with mine and see what happens.

I don't believe they are "supposed" to, and I wouldn't recommend it because they normally eat the molly a$s first.

sevenyearnight wrote: So I'm stuck with this stupid molly because Balki decided they are bff's .

Lol, that's great. I can just imagine how out of place that molly looks.

I've had fair luck with BBGs, not much else has been lasting.

But I also only start BBGs before the F-8 does into the tank from QT, and only get small (& hopefully young) F-8s.

After sexual maturity things do sometimes go bad. That applies to any puffer though.

I've had very little luck adding anything to tanks with mature puffers. It just does not work for me.