The Puffer Forum

I put the three SAPs in about 5 days ago.. Tank is pretty heavily planted.. I just put in a bristlenose pleco today. One of the SAPs pesters him a little, the pleco tries to hold his ground but sometimes almost gets a nip before getting away... Seems like as long as the pleco is out of sight of their territories, he is out of mind of the SAPs? He is about twice their size, but..

I'm getting another batch of plants shortly to add to the tank.. Will that help or will only time tell if the pleco will be fine?

It should help. I think the pleco will learn to stay out of their way. Keep an eye on him & if it looks like his "haircut" is getting a bit close, I'd remove him & get some ottos. How large is the tank?

The tank is 55g. He seemed to not understand to "stay out of their way" the first day.. I remember watching him wander in the territory of all 3 puffers flying around near the powerhead and aerator... Needless to say he got chased away as soon as one got irritated by him being there. The puffers seem to give up instantly when chasing him.. Not completely pestering him.

Put a few pieces of driftwood in there if you haven't already. Bristlenoses need driftwood to chew on, and they can hide in and under it during the day and come out at night to clean.

It has a nice chunk of bogwood and a decent space for him to hide under.. There is a piece of driftwood, but it doesn't provide much cover (4-5 branches that I put java moss on). I don't think he has found his nice nook under the bogwood yet.. but he will, every pleco finds the smallest nooks to hide out in.

And an update, the pleco has been hiding underneath the biowheels on my Emperor 400.. Odd place to hide during the day, but I think he's still spooked.. only time and the SAP's respect will bring him out. The SAPs bothered him the first day but now they mind their own business and go on with their daily activities of flying into the powerhead for hours.

I've kept SAPs with Panaque nigrolineatus and not had problems. Very occasionally I see a tear in its dorsal or tail fin that might be puffer related, but it's such a clumsy fish that could equally easily be a scratch from swimming into some bogwood or something. As far as I can tell, the SAPs ignore it completely. The same wasn't true for Corydoras, which seem to have an irresistable attractive for pufferfish (taste, maybe?). At worse, the bristlenose will simply become completely nocturnal, during which time the SAPs are effectively harmless.

Cheers, Neale

Just a question, I suppose the SAP's would hate clown and yoyo loaches wouldnt they? They are very pestering type fish, not really aggressive, just annoying.. sometimes getting "up in fishes" faces.. The only probable way it might work is a really big clown loach I would think ..