The Puffer Forum

Are there any good tankmates for Figure Eights other than bumblebee gobies?

Knight gobys and dragon gobys have been known to work. Although dragon gobys get very large.

If your tank is big enough (30 gals+) I love orange chromis with f8's. Fast enough to never fall prey to the puff, but peaceful enough to never bug it.

Scats usually workout ok.

Scats also get quite large.

Would any of those tank mates stated above, would they be OK with GSP as well

IME, a scat is too big, too messy, and too hungry to be kept with eith an F-8 or a GSP. the F-8 water condition would be wrong as well. Not good advice IMHO.

Puffers in general do best without tankmates, or with their own kind. Some few tolerate some specific tankmates, but even that can be iffy.

I agree with RTR. Scats get far too big, and keepig tankmates with puffers is risky at best anyway.

Sounds good, thanks for the feedback.

I think a hard to care for fish like a dragon goby shouldn't be added to any puffer tank until you know for certain how that puff reacts to slow-moving tankmates. They (dragon gobies) are also a bit challenging to feed so the aggression level of the puffer is important there too.

Fast moving tankmates seem to be the best bet, and like Lisalisa said, ones that are fast but not aggressive. Bumblebees are really cute, and orange Chromis would be interesting too, but a larger tank would be required.

Freshwater soles are good candidates for a 30 gallon tank too, but they are also tempting to nip for puffs.

Knight gobies are iffy for me because one of my close friends added one to her tank and it nipped every fish out of the way during feeding time. I'm not sure if this food aggression is typical with knight gobies though. Tihso would know, maybe he'll add some info there.

Don't forget mollies! They do well in brackish and are decent cleaning up after messy puffers. I recommend black mollies, but any molly without fancy fins should do well. (I keep a pair of black molly females in my F8 tank.)

For a few years, I had some white-cheek gobies. They did really well with my F8 and were a delight! If I ever see any again I'm going to snatch them up and give them a tank to themselves.

Michelle - I had one knight goby that was really aggressive during feeding, so back to the LFS he went. Now, when I moved my figure 8 to a bigger tank (29 gallon from a 20 long), I took a chance, added two mollies and a smaller knight goby.

While one molly annoyed my puffer and would get it's fin nipped (so back to the LFS - they're very understanding and I'm their honaray puffer expert), but the other molly and the knight and the figure 8 all get along fine. This knight is just much more passive, and the third fish also adds a dynamic that seems to keep things in equilibrium.

However, it's been maybe a month with everyone together, so I have no long term experience with these guys as tankmates and things could change.

Eric

Jayhawk:That's exactly where my friend's goby ended up- back at the LFS. Her knight goby was rather large, I'd say 3" and very round... Maybe their aggression increases with age? How large was the aggressive one and how large is the peaceful one you have now?

Puffergeek: I always forget about mollies! I have, now that you mention it, read many successful stories of mollies and F8s being combined successfully.
As for white-cheeked gobies, I've never heard of them, I'm going to google them now

<edit> I found the scientific name, Rhinogobius duospilus. Here's a link to some pics:
http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/ ... &submit=Go
Are these what you had?

My mean knight was about 3 inches...and my new one about 1.5". Another difference was the bigger one hid most of the day and only came out for feeding, and this one is out and about most of the day. It's funny, but the molly (growing into quite the substantial fish) likes to chase the goby. Maybe as the goby ages things will change - I'll let the board know if it does.

Eric

OraLacerta wrote: Puffergeek: I always forget about mollies! I have, now that you mention it, read many successful stories of mollies and F8s being combined successfully.
As for white-cheeked gobies, I've never heard of them, I'm going to google them now
<edit> I found the scientific name, Rhinogobius duospilus. Here's a link to some pics:
http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/ ... &submit=Go
Are these what you had?

That's them! They were great little blokes... they had little burrows under the rocks and (fake) wood, the male turned very striking colors, and they had a nifty way of moving their head around they was so cute! They would chase each other around and were just a lot of fun to watch. I had them about two years... I'd love to keep them in a species tank.

I've only seen them for sale the one time, and I bought the three the LFS had. I kept asking them for more, but they never were able to get them again.

I'll try to dig up some pictures...