The Puffer Forum

Hi all! In looking for info on figure 8's, I have found that many people keep figure 8's in community tanks (some even say that they are fw fish!). Anyone keep their fig 8's in community tanks?

Not me, strictly species.

my "community" consists of two columbian cats and a scat.

They will generally not be a good choice to a so called community tank. My cats often have nips out of their fins and they are each almost 7 inches long. I don't believe a smaller fish would fair so well with my puffs. This is why I do not have a goby. I was considering adding a molly for clean-up, but only a big one. No puffer can be trusted because they may be nice for some time then you will wake up to a very empty tank and a very fat puffer. Also, figure eights will not thrive in fresh water. The fresh water will sustain them, but it can stunt their growth and affect their health. Your best bet is to look into placing figure eights with archers, monos, scats, columbian cats, gobies, even mollies if your puff is tolerable. There are many beautiful and interesting brackish fish out there if you are in for the extra work.

jessica

But not all of those fish cited are suitable for lifetime light BW, and would require quite a large tank for lifcycle housing.

Thanks for the info. Looks like a F8 needs a species tank (now to convince my husband that we should get another tank..... )

Actually they do not have to be purely species, they cohabit pretty well with Bumblebee Gobies, and the Gobies are happy at the same densities. They also act as a bit of a cleaning crews for the scraps the puffers leave.

My "community" tank has F8s, BBG, knight gobies & a dragon goby.

I currently have two F8s. One of them I had a couple months before the other.

The first F8 lived for over a month and a half with two Bumblebee Gobies without even so much as a curious glance at them. After a couple months I bought my other F8, and one Goby managed to "dissapear", and the other went with a *crunch* and a very content F8.

Thus proving that not all puffernalaties are alike, even within the same species!

One of the F8s favorite games is "Gang-up-on-the-gobie". Poor Knight has permanent damage to his fins. Just another instance of Puffer personality.

Since i bought my first F8 , i havent made my tank BW yet..(just at 1.001) so my F8 has been with 2 plattys , a plecos , a paradise fish (he got his fins bite but just a little) and 2 silver dollar :O ...

Now im making my tank BW so i bought another F8 and a scat and had no problem with em (just the scat and the paradise fish fought all day) so i removed both , now my tank has only my 2 F8 , a plecos and a platty (those platty where there from the begginig to test my puffers , so if they wanna be "nasty" , they would take it on the plattys instead of going for my paradise fish and scat)...

So hehe depends on the personality of ur F8 , if u see hes not that aggressive u could try some mixes , just keep ur F8 well fed and entretain him with some Snails so that hes always busy in something else rather than on ur other fish

And this resumes my humble opinion

Plecos do not belong in BW either, that fish should be removed a well. Besides whic they represent a massive bioload.