The Puffer Forum

Hi everyone! I'm new here so I thought I would introduce you to my tanks!

here's my 105 gallon South American planted tank
inhabitants:

• 4 SAP puffers
  8 serpae tetras
  6 silver hatchet fish
  7 ottos
  6 julii cory cats
  1 angelfish

I wouldn't have put the angel fish in there with the SAPs, but I had pretty much given up on finding the puffers locally and decided to go with angels and discus when I finally found puffers. they seem to have enough room to give each other their space, but I can only wonder how long it will last even with the more peacful SAPs.


here's my 7 gallon dwarf tank
inhabitants:

• 1 dwarf puffer
  3 cardinal tetras
  nerites and ghost shrimp

originally I just had 3 dwarf puffers hoping to get a male and 2 females, but they all turned out to be males and with the smaller tank one 1 remained. granted, one of them looked pretty bad when I got him, so he may have just succumbed to internal parasites rather than attack but the other was chased on occasion. during a rescape of my 105 gallon, I netted the cardinals since I was having terrible luck establishing a group in my main tank without half of them dying off and I had recently added the SAPs. since I was down to just the single dwarf, I figured the 3 cardinals would help liven up the tank.

here's the DP


I'm in the process of setting up my 37 gallon for a pair of Fig 8s. it's currently fishless cycling while I wait for my plants.


other tanks/ponds:
1 5 gallon snail breeder with super fancy petco roman decor, lol
1 75 gallon outdoor pond (2 fan tails and 3 shubunkens)
1 300 gallon hospital pond/snail breeder (currently empty, I plan to combine the 75 gallon and 300 gallon this summer)
1 3500 gallon koi pond.


look forward to getting to know all of you and your tanks!
~Beth

Welcome Beth!
Thanks for the pictures

I never saw a striped DP before. Are you sure about the species?

Welcome to the forum .........saps are pretty timid and friendly as fish go , any nipping is them being curious as to something being edible . Pesonally I'd be more worried about them being bullied by the angel fish .

Hi friend

cool group of fish. i think you'll really enjoy figure 8 once you get them. They are more roundish than your SAP.

Thanks for the welcome everyone!

Pufferpunk wrote:I never saw a striped DP before. Are you sure about the species?

I'm fairly certain. it was from petsmart. besides a travancoricus, what could he be?

Puffer King wrote:Welcome to the forum .........saps are pretty timid and friendly as fish go , any nipping is them being curious as to something being edible . Pesonally I'd be more worried about them being bullied by the angel fish .

Banana (the angel) has been the boss of the tank for a long time. when I first added the puffers, he tried to show them he was king and the puffers didn't back down and turned around and "checked him out". ever since then, they seem to give each other their space. I think banana is intimidated my them, haha. I originally set this tank up for SAPs but had a terrible time finding them. all of my plants and fish are south american, so in keeping with a loose biotope theme I decided to just keep a few angels instead. pretty much right after that, I found some puffers and brought them home.

Terrance wrote:Hi friend

cool group of fish. i think you'll really enjoy figure 8 once you get them. They are more roundish than your SAP.

I loved my figure 8! he was in fresh water when I had him but I had to give him away when I tore down all my tanks for a remodel. I also had a fahaka for almost 10 years that I had to part ways with, but that was more of a happy ending since he went to a much larger tank. I had him in my 105 gallon tank and he was nearly 16 inches, so even though I missed the guy, I knew he had a good home. when I tore down my brackish tank, the monos and GSP finally found a marine home instead of the midrange brackish they were in.

I'm slowly starting to get my tanks back, but I'm a little upset that 2 of my acrylic tanks have really fine scratches from being moved around so much (especially my 105! even on the inside of the tank! ugh!), but I"ll probably never get back up to the 13 tanks I had running before! haha

There is a way to buff out those scratches.

Pufferpunk wrote:There is a way to buff out those scratches.

I have a scratch removal kit but I never got around to trying it out since they didn't look too bad when the tank was empty.

Your Dwarf Puffer looks a little like a baby Ceylon. It surely doesn't look like any Dwarf Puffer I've ever seen.

it has to just be the pic, I don't think he looks anything like a ceylon, personally. I'll take another one to compare to when I get home. I've kept dwarf puffers on and off for over 15 years and he doesn't look any different than others that I've kept. wrinkly eye, dark line, a little blue spot... besides, if it turns out to be a ceylon, it's the slowest growing one I've ever encountered. I've had him for about 9 months now and he hasn't gotten any bigger than he was when I got him other than maybe a cm or two.

here's a couple more pictures:

Yeah, it was just the pic, and I was looking at it on my phone's small screen, that's surely a DP.

it doesn't help when I'm using my phone to take the picture and the tank has scratches that throw off the focus, lol