The Puffer Forum

With experience? I have a single irrubesco in the former dp 10g since I'm down to my last dp... The dp is in my 2.5 bowfront for the time being and I'd love to try to introduce them but I didn't want the irrubesco to eat her!!! Do I put one inside a bag and let them see each other that way?

On which profile?

The irrubesco profile

I know the dp could pass through eggcrate but possibly a mesh divider in the tank and monitor their interactions.

I know RTR did some write ups on tanks side by side with water exchange this helped with the fish being able to identify each other in the water. I think this same concept would apply with the mesh versus the bag.

Yeah I have some screen door screen so I thought maybe that attached to eggcrate

hadla wrote:With experience? I have a single irrubesco in the former dp 10g since I'm down to my last dp... The dp is in my 2.5 bowfront for the time being and I'd love to try to introduce them but I didn't want the irrubesco to eat her!!! Do I put one inside a bag and let them see each other that way?

I have a dp with 2 irrubescos, and they get along in my tank quite well.
The irrubescos (especially my female, she strangely is the more aggressive of the two) sometimes charge the dwarf a little bit, but he escape (he is faster, at least for short bursts, and short burst are all that is needed cause when the line of sight is broken the chase stops - my tank is quite heavily planted).

I think the charge are more for intimidation, cause the dp often likes to hang close to the irrubescos...Maybe he think the food is there, or the female looks like a very big female dp to him? Anyway it's more tense between the 2 irrubescos than between any of them and the dp....

The main difficulty is to feed the dp, cause the irrubescos are quite voracious once they get comfortable in the tank, and it's not so easy for the dp to get his share without overfeeding the irrubescos...

Thanks I have a male irrubesco and a female dp... I think I'll put the dp into my aquarium measuring cup and watch how they both react

hadla wrote:Thanks I have a male irrubesco and a female dp... I think I'll put the dp into my aquarium measuring cup and watch how they both react

I'm not sure this experiment will tell you much about what would really happen when they share the tank.

I remember that during introduction, when each of the irrubescos were in transparent plastic bags, they looked more aggressive towards the other inhabitants of the tank. In fact the transparent barrier was annoying them and they wanted to go out and have a look at the other puffers and other thing moving (amano shrimps and endler guppies in my case). Once inside, well fed, they are not aggressive and calmer, mostly ignoring other inhabitants, except the irrubescos which are slightly territorial and hierarchical...

So I think only way to find out is to try, and realise that what happen immediately can change a week or a year after, for better or worse....

I actually just put them together and everything seems fine so far... The irrubesco might even get bossed around by the tiny dp!

hadla wrote:I actually just put them together and everything seems fine so far... The irrubesco might even get bossed around by the tiny dp!

Oh yes, just thinking of it now, you may want to check their behavior when lights are out, maybe 30 minutes after...or better, before they turn on in the morning. Irrubescos are bolder in dim light, and it's the opposite for dp. Hopefully your dp is not so bold as to forget to be careful during feeding, but I think you should be all right with this cohabitation....mine is ok for more than one year now...

Thanks, I already thought of checking after sundown they've been together for about 3 days so far