The Puffer Forum

Hi. I recently acquired two freshwater tanks from a friend who is moving--one large tank full of your standard freshwater variety, barbs, gouramis, tetras, etc. and one smaller tank with a dwarf puffer and two guppies. The puffer and guppies have been eating frozen bloodworms, and even before I got online to do a little research, I noticed that the puffer was much slower and started making sure he got enough to eat.

Now, I'd like to move the guppies to a separate tank (they're just little feeders, and I'm kicking around moving them and the guppy from the other tank separately to breed, as I keep water turtles also and keeping them in goldfish is a bit of a pain), so I was wondering, what else would go well with the puffer? The only thing I'm finding recommended online are otos, and since the tank is well out of sunlight, I don't think I'd have enough algae to keep one fed. What, if anything, have others kept well with dwarfs? It's one of those small hexagonal tanks, I'd guess ten gallons, so I wouldn't want to crowd it.

you can still keep an otto, just pick up some algae flakes.

In a tank that small, there aren't many options really. Dwarf puffers can be evil little buggars, cute, but they like to be bossy, and there really aren't many fish out there small enough to fit comfortably in a 10 gallon (consider full grown size), especially a hex one that doesn't allow a ton of length for swimming. Puffers work well because they are more into exploring instead of darting long distances, same with bettas, but they don't mix for obvious reasons .

Maybe kuhli loaches, if you give them plenty of rockwork/caves/hiding places to get away from the puffs, who may torment them. They stay small enough, but you probably wouldn't see them much so not sure if it would be worth adding the bioload to the tank.

You could try your luck with some algae eating shrimp, maybe try cheap ghost shrimp first to see if the puffs let them live first. That's about all I can think of.

The loaches might be a good idea. I got a number of geodes with the tanks, and I hadn't put one in with the puffer yet, but they're pretty craggy. Also, even for a dwarf, he's still pretty small--only a bit bigger than the guppies, so he might well leave shrimp alone. I was planning to pick up a couple more fish for the other aquarium tomorrow (the only casualty of the move was a zebra fish, and the other is pretty lonely), so perhaps I'll pick up a couple of ghost shrimp to see how that works out.

My Dwarfs are the least agressive in my tank!
The Oto charges around ignoring every one, and the amano shrimp steal anything they see anything else enjoying, its a great tank to watch!
Really depends on the puffer