The Puffer Forum

hi, I wrote the other day asking peoples advice on green spotted puffers and other types of freshwater puffers.
I am so pleased i have now found myself a lovely Brazilian puffer (even though it was sold as a fresh water spotted puffer). When researching about the Brazilian I read that they are peaceful fish and can live in a community tank.
Can I have peoples view on this and is there any one that does keep one in a community tank with all their other fish.

thanks Clare

Dont put the puff with fish you dont want to lose. They are "peaceful" when it comes to puffers, but I would not trust them with my other fish.

Js

Do a search. There's lots of people who have had success with certain tankmates. But every puffer is different.

Read the article in the Hospital section or the Library on Pufferfish Dentistry. You'll be needing it.

Clare --

I'm one of the people who keeps them in a community, and in maybe 18 months haven't yet any serious problems. They seem to me to be no worse than tiger barbs or blue gouramis or angelfish in terms of potential to cause havoc.

Anyway, there are two things to consider. Firstly, certain fish are highly attractive to these puffers, in the sense of being viewed as food. Corydoras are at the top of this list. I'd also add slow moving tetras (e.g. neons) and stupid livebearers (e.g. platies). Secondly, if they get hungry, they will try to nip the fins of other fish. In a big tank with fast-moving tankmates this isn't a serious problem, but it's worth considering, and adding anything with long fins, like angels or gouramis, is asking for problems.

Bleeding heart tetras, diamond tetras, hatchetfish, and glassfish seem to be ideal tankmates in terms of size and speed. I'd predict barbs and rainbowfish would be safe too. Halfbeaks are do-able, basically being fast enough most of the time but the big, old females do get the odd nip (like once in six months). Dwarf cichlids seem to work as well, though this is perhaps more dependent on the aggression of the cichlids -- the puffers learn to back off if robust cichlids like kribs are being kept. I'd warrant high-speed loaches would work well too, such as kuhlis and horseface loaches. Plecs seem to be ignored as well, probably because plecs tend to swat annoying little fish. Synodontis catfish are ignored, perhaps because those catfish squeak and are just a bit too odd (most other fish seem to ignore them too, including cichlids)

They also get along extremely well with Carinotetraodon irrubesco red-tail puffers, the two species largely ignoring one another.

As for the teeth-clipping thing, my experience is this: with a sandy substrate and lots of Malayan livebearing snails, teeth trimming was not very important i.e., even after 12 months there was little sign of tooth growth. When I replaced the sand with slates (a long story) and lost most of the snails, the growth in teeth was noticeable. Now, not everyone here approves of using Malayan livebearing snails as pufferfish food and I respect that, but my experience was that the South American puffers only ate the teeny-tiny ones but in the process did *seem* to wear down their teeth.

One last thing: they are intensly sociable fish. Please consider getting your pufferfish a pal. Perhaps uniquely among freshwater puffers these are fish that shouldn't be kept singly. They form schools in the wild, and seem much more settled when kept in groups. Since they barely reach 8 cm in aquaria, and growth is very slow, accommodating a group of them isn't difficult.

Cheers, Neale

nmonks wrote:... stupid livebearers (e.g. platies) ...

Hehehe

Thought i was the only one who thought that about the damn things!

I'm gonna tell my mollies you said that!