The Puffer Forum

Hello
I had a DP for a year or two where now we have both been evicted from our once happy home.
So, looking ahead I am thinking of getting a larger tank for an F8. Would an Ancistrus be armoured enough to keep the F8 at bay. Ancistrus can turn nocturnal.
I have heard that F8s can be Freshwater. I know a lot of people would say F8s are Brackish so is there a good brackish candidate?
Cheers Jerry

Freshwater is not a good idea. Nothing is armoured enough to withstand a puffers bite. If you maintain pristine water and have it out of direct sunlight you shouldn't have algae problems

I had luck with black mollies eating algae in BW.

bertie 83 wrote: Nothing is armoured enough to withstand a puffers bite.

lol, especially an mbu beak!

Do Black Mollies clean as well as a plec?

Reduce the light first.

Keep nitrate low,

Increase tank size if mollies are to be added.

Considering you cannot keep a plec in BW at all, there is no comparison.

My SW molly completely destroyed all forms of hair algae that came in on my live rock. Their worth is so much more than the 2$ i spent on it..

Thanks for all that.

I think the potential Plec will off limits so no worries there.

I have read somewhere that a river in Thailand was cut off from the sea where a reservior was dammed off. Many years later figure 8s are still found in the river.
Hmmm...???

I can feel the blood boiling... this is just probably the residual population dying off over a few years I guess. I'll keep my F8 low salt so don't fret, ok!

Thanks for your help!!

-Jerry

Figure 8 puffers are in fresh water in the wild, it's that it has been found that they live longer in low end brackish.

Yes, they do best in low-end BW (1.005) when in captivity.

In the wild, fish which are marginal - those living in estuaries and bays and the lower reaches of tidal rivers - can choose the water conditions the prefer at any stage of their life - and short-term or long-term.

In captivity, fish have no choice. They live (or die) in the water we provide for them.

In the wild any given fish is successful if it reproduces itself, even it it does not ling syrvuve that act. It is highly successful if it produces more than one live offspring in that it has enlarged its genes share of the gene pool.

In captivity, most puffers cannot or have not been bred, so that "success" cannot apply. The only success scale we can use is long life and health. The "best" captive conditions tend to be high water quality (low metabolite levels, and low dissolved organics in the water) and relatively stable conditions.

Captivity is not at all like the wild. Don't try to kid yourself on that point.

HTH