The Puffer Forum

I havent posted here recently...when I first got my MBU you guys were great help!
He has settled in nicely and is now probably twice the size he was when I got him. He eats out of my hand, swims up to say hello when we walk near the tank, watches TV and is a happy choppy! He/she is definitely the most interactive fish i have ever had! He has been moved to a few different tanks in my house as we had to have a new floor put in the living room so he was homeless for a while. taking a bit of a risk, I put him/her in a 55gal in my fish room with a pair of red spot gold sevrums, 6 congo tetras and 20 glowlight tetras. He is a really friendly chap and it was for a few days only so I thought it would be ok.

The funny thing is, he and one of the Severums have become best friends.... they swim around together, huddle at the bottom of the tank together and are pretty much inseparable... They have now all moved back into my main tank in the living room and the MBU and Severum are still thick as thieves! Funny how these things happen! I will try to get a photo of them together at night when the glare off the tank isn't so bad.

Anyone else have a puffer with an unlikely best friend?

My T. mbu slept with a Pajama Catfish when he was small. When he was ~3 years old, he ate the cat, leaving only the pectoral girdle intact (where the heaviest spines are attached). Most predators don't have friends IME. Sooner or later "friends" become live food.

My fahaka accepted a large cae in his tank purely because he could not catch it.

one of my ottos thinks that a mbu's head makes the perfect seating area.

I had my Fahaka with a Rainbow shark for almost a year until he ate him when I was moving houses.... Turns out the only thing that made them great partners was that he was fast and he called home a small hole in some décor that the fahaka could not even get into. I should have taken the shark out first, I took out the décor while I started that phase on moving the tank, I went to grab a glass of water and I came back to a rainbow shark head, no body. things happen fast!

Master of Puffers wrote:one of my ottos thinks that a mbu's head makes the perfect seating area.

You realize that can kill your puffer. You need to remove the oto right away. They will suck a hole in his slime coat and then infection will set in.

That is not true! Please tell me when this happened to your fish? Maybe you have these fish confused with SAEs?

I lost two discus and almost a third before I realized what was happening. The otos enjoy sucking the slime coat and when they suck a hole in it the fish can get Avery bad infection. I was only trying to help. There is no other reason the oto would repeatedly land on the puffers head.

Maybe the discus' slime coat is more tasty? Most of us have kept our puffers (who don't eat them) with ottos, without problems.

Maybe lol. But if they have a rebel oto they should keep an eye on it lol.

Mmmmm fish slime