The Puffer Forum

im planning on setting up a 5ft freshwater tank for a fahaka puffer in the next few weeks hopefully.
I know they are extremely aggressive, but can anything live with them? ive seen a member on here i think have one living with a rather large pleco, is this about as much as a fahaka can tolerate?
I dont mind dedicating an entire tank to a fahaka, would be nice to put my plecs in there tho.

I'm one of the few people that has (so far) managed to keep something with their fahaka. If it lasts in the long term, no one will be more surprised than me.

I keep a garra flavatra with mine, a current loving cyprinid. He's too fast for the fahaka and has plenty of places to hide. Plenty of people find that their plecs get bitten in half by a fierce fahaka, so the long and the short of it is, if you think it might not make it, don't risk it.

If I had to choose which kinds of fish would stand a better chance with fahakas though, I'd say things like red tailed black sharks, bala sharks (at size...) and other fast swimming cyprinids might cut the mustard.

However the more fish you try to add to the fahaka set up the greater the bioload on the filter and smaller the water volumn per fish. Bear this in mind if you do try more than the fahaka.
Puffers such as this do not require tank mates and can live happily alone.

will a fahaka be ok with plecos, thats all im really hoping for.
im happy to add additional filtration as i understand both fish are extremely messy!

I have a friend, whose 4" fahaka bit an 8" pleco in half! Plecos are not safe with most fahakas. If, on the other hand, you get the rare fahaka that allows tank mates (like mine) you may be able to get away with a pleco. My fahaka still likes to take bites out of the dorsals & sometimes other parts of his tank mates. I had some tiger barbs that lasted close to 3 years w/him--there are no more now. For some reason he really hated my electric blue JD, after he became an adult (had him since he was 1").




He didn't make it...

Some of Filbert's tank mates niw:






He also lives with a few assorted rainbowfish, one of whom he decided to bite a huge piece out of it's belly. Seems to not have bitten anything important & is healing up nicely.

You are asking a very broadrand question to which IME I would answer no.

115 gallons is under the bare minimum size anyhow - you should upgrade the tank before adding to the bioload.

generaly u cna get away with smaller fish thata re quick, and if u have lots of cover in the tank. iv been sucessfuly with a coupel fish aslong as they stick to those guidlines but he still gets one here n there. right now i have a nice school of whitcloud minows in there, that work pretty good. iv gotten away with small pleco's. iv alsao gotten away with kribs, although he got a couple. now im trying a flying fox, and see how that goes. generaly almost everyhing gets eaten eventualy but if there fast and small u have a decent chance, and generaly last a wile.

Thats kind of malicious, myles. Sending them to their death... If you know they all get killed eventually why don't you stop buying more?

I think rocks are good tankmates. Some have the habit of being really sluggish at times, but they're overall pretty docile.

myles wrote:generaly u cna get away with smaller fish thata re quick, and if u have lots of cover in the tank. iv been sucessfuly with a coupel fish aslong as they stick to those guidlines but he still gets one here n there. right now i have a nice school of whitcloud minows in there, that work pretty good. iv gotten away with small pleco's. iv alsao gotten away with kribs, although he got a couple. now im trying a flying fox, and see how that goes. generaly almost everyhing gets eaten eventualy but if there fast and small u have a decent chance, and generaly last a wile.

What does succesful mean?What fish and how long ?

well small fish like the white cloud minows i have and tetras ect i have had in ther with him for months and thy do great. although he gets one once and a wile. iv gotten away with a small pleco for a couple months too but we had a power outage and he froze so that wasnt puffs fault im not trying another and so far so good. im also trying a flying fix now to see how it goes and its been good so far. I did have some kribs in there for a wile and they did good too, but they froze aswell, i couldnt keep it hot enough, luckjily i got puff out of their and sone vacation for a week haha, but like i sad try small quick little fish, or maby even small cichlids like the kribs or maby convicts or cronades ect.

That's quite a range of fish, most of which have different environmental needs than the fahaka. And being quick doesn't mean much to a puffer. They may be slow, but mine have managed to shred much larger and faster fish. They're stealth stalkers.

In the scheme of things, when talking about a puffer that can live a decade or more, a few months isn't what I would consider a success, especially as temperaments tend to change, sometimes overnight without warning, as fish age.

So basically nothing has been that successful. 'Some' of them being 'got' is not great and only a few months doesn't constitute 'living' with a fahaka.
Successful in my books and living together means that the two species live together long term preferably through out their lives.

yeah it hasnt been very long. although iv only lost a couple due to the puffer, i lost everyhting 3 weeks ago to a power outage. but i have restoked my tank, and so far everythings been fine, so until more time goes by i cant say for sure. only time will tell. although there is a fellow i belive that has had a red tail black shark with his fahaka for quite some time, not sure if hes on this forum tho.

I stand by my tankmate suggestion.