The Puffer Forum

i have had my original F8 in his 29 gallon for about 6 months and i am going to be switching him to a 55 gallon tank tomorow this tank has been up for months now and i just got rid of the fish in it because i want more puffers...how many figures 8s can i add to the 55 gallon along with the 1 i have?

You could fit five in there but it would be safer to stick with four. However, when kept with others they do tend to be less social with us than if they were alone.

I have never had a stable 5 F-8 tank. That includes one set in a 75 and another in a 120. I am afraid that I rather strongly disagree with the PufferPedia on that point. Each F-8 added decreases the chances of long-term stability.

But in fairness I have to admit that long-term t me is a minimum of 10 years. I have never operated any F-8 mulch-specimen tank where I did not not have to remove individuals (note that individuals is plural, so more than one) due to harassment from dominant fish. And always within 3-5 years. That for me is enough to never set F-8 tanks with multiples. I prefer keeping fish, not killing them. F-8s may well school seasonally in the wild, but I think it highly unlikely that they do so year-round.

Additionally and in large part due to the above, I have never had F-8s in a multi-specimen tank survive to their expected lifespam. That also convinces me that it is stressful to them and life-shortening. So again, NIMFT.

I have never sen any reports of long-term (5, 10, or 15 years) stable multi-specimen F-8 tanks. But then I have heard very few reports of any long-term multi-puffer systems other than with SAPs and DPs.

This hobby runs on short term or limited term information, unfortunately.

Adam K wrote:i have had my original F8 in his 29 gallon for about 6 months and i am going to be switching him to a 55 gallon tank tomorow this tank has been up for months now and i just got rid of the fish in it because i want more puffers...how many figures 8s can i add to the 55 gallon along with the 1 i have?

Aside from RTR's very valid points about F8s thriving in single-specimen setups, I think you also might not be successful introducing new puffers to one who's been alone for 6 months. Adding them to a new tank together certainly increases the odds that they won't fight (since nobody will have established territories in a new space yet), but once a puffer's been on his own that long, I'm doubtful that he'll welcome "friends."

if i ever get the chance i want to get a 100+ gallon tank put like 5-7 in there and make it look realistic and try to get them to breed.

But the hunter-predator puffers are likely to school only in seasonal migrations. Otherwise they are highly territorial towards their own kind over their routine hunting territories. In the wild, underdogs can flee the area. In tanks they cannot.

It may work if the particular fish involved are are sold together and of very similar size initially. But it also may go bad as they reach sexual maturity. We have little chance of matching the footprints of wild territory sizes in tanks. Sexually mature territorial fish do not as a rule play well together.

Personally I have never succeeded in keeping as many as for sexually mature hunter predator fish together in any but too-small tanks where they could not establish territories, and they were severely stunted.

It might work better if we could distinguish sexes and kept only males or females but not both.

well i put the original f8 in the 60 gal and added 3 small f8s about 5 mins later and the bigger guy inspected them in there bag and hung around so i got a little nervous but when i added them he didnt do anything just seemed like he wanted to hang out and now the 4 of them are always together they swim together eat in the same spots and even lay in the same rock cave area...its odd but cute lol

Pics or it didn't happen lol