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thinking about getting me some puffers so a few questions about them

Dwarf puffers: how many per 10 gallon tank? any tankmates?

Fig 8's: how many per 10 gallon tank? any tankmates? what sg is best for them?

thanks a bundle for any help

Dwarf puffers around ~3. If you can sex them and get mostly females then more might be possible. They also have a good chance of breeding and aren't horrible parents, don't care for their young but aren't guranteed to eat them either, so you could end up with many more. Occasionally people manage to keep ghost shrimp or otos with them but there is always the potential that these tankmates will be eaten or killed eventually.
http://www.dwarfpuffers.com/recommends 1 puffer to every 2-3gallons so up to 5 puffers but I'd only do that if they are big enough you can sex them and only get 1 male. 3 would be a better number and make sure to decorate heavily to break up territories and their view of each other.

Fig 8s no more than 2 and they may still fight. The minimum tank size I usually see is 15g for 1 and 20g for 2. Tank should be light brackish so around 1.005-1.008 sg. No tankmates are suitable in that size aquarium.

Youre not gonna like this.

Basically because its kind of boring and unexciting.

DP's generally fin and gill nip tankmates to death. It might take a week, it might take a year, but they do eventually kill other fish, and thats most species including fish youd imagine are too big to kill. You can try tough little species like bumblebee gobies, but even then its not guaranteed to work out. They eat snails and shrimp too so that wont work.

They fight each other too, when massively overcrowded and disorientated in shops they seem peaceful, but get em home and in a few weeks or months they start duking it out over territory. Each fish will want roughly a cubic foot of water to call its own. Ridiculous for such a tiny fish isnt it?

If you plant it well and create lots of visual barriers you should get 2-4 in there, just about. For more peaceful times, try to keep more females than males, (the males are the ones with wrinkly surrounds to the eyes), although granted it will be difficult to tell if they are young.

No doubt the arguement will rage over how suitable for community they may or may not be after this post, but allow me to give you the short version and say that people who put them in community are a bunch of chancers, and those that dont get to have a nice species tank with fewer problems and no "surprise£ deaths.

Im certainly not going to bother getting into one of those daft conversations again, it comes up too often to keep argueing, basically because puffer keepers fall into two groups. Those who have seen the puffers kill, and those who havent yet and dont believe it. In the end, 90% of people who keep them believe it. Its not worth the risk. Freshwater puffers dont belong in community. People get lucky sometimes, but your odds of sharing that luck are 90% against. No cagemates are the best cagemates in small tanks. Puffers are killers.

I've kept both - DPs are cool, but small...too small for me. I had 4-5 in a 10 gallon that was very well planted - I started with 5 but one didn't make it. FWIW, they're purely a FW fish.

Figure 8s can live in a 10 gallon, but I ended up needing two 50% water changes per week to keep up the water quality. They're messy eaters. They also require a full on snail diet (small pond snails or plain small ramshorns) or you'll have to do puffer dentistry. I've done it, and it's not fun (my puffer lost one tooth plate so he doesn't eat hard, crunchy foods very well anymore). As already mentioned SG 1.005ish, no other tankmates in a small tank (I had a black molly harass mine in a 29 gallon tank, of course, he was tearing the molly's fins, too). My figure 8 does live with a knight goby in the 29, but this knight is mellower than the prior one which I returned to the LFS because he was really aggressive (this one has been in there over a year now).

Eric

The problem with bumblebees and DPs is that bumblebees truly are brackish water fish. Such hardy little buggers that it is no surprise people manage to keep them for awhile in freshwater but after plenty of research and seeing it for myself I'd never recommend it. They are much more active and healthier in a brackish tank. DPs on the otherhand are 100% freshwater and should have no salt added to their tank. Makes them completely incompatible and even if you did it I'd bet both species would have constantly nipped fins from going at it with each other.

My LFS said dwarf puffers and bumblebee gobies would do good together. Guess I won't do that based on what I read. How many bumblebee gobies would work in a 10 gallon if it was made a species tank? A bumblebee species tank really appeals to me.

I have kept the dp's in a community setting without any incidences. They are not in a tank with long flowing fins, though.

Good tankmates are neons, celebes rainbows, hatchets, loaches, glass catfish are great too. just nothing big enough to eat them.

I have had one colony in excess of 4 years, and another colony that have been together for two years.

The tanks are low light planted tanks, with java fern and java moss, and various anubias and crypts. There is also some driftwood present.

They also pay no attention to a wood shrimp that I have, mine do not bother glass shrimp.

I've heard it is good to keep bumblebee gobies in groups. Maybe 2-4 if your tank will be a species tank. They definitely thrive in brackish water.

No matter how many times I hear it, I still tend to get the shivers when I hear of people keeping dwarf puffers with other fish.

I dont think its ever responsible to recommend it. Ultimately because its a total lottery with the odds stacked so heavily against compatability , and I dont think anyone should be giving out advice that its ok to keep dp's with other fish. Its like inviting other people to kill their fish. People will take a piece of advice like that and run with it, especially when it suits their own ideas, conveiniently underestimating the risks.For 90% of people who try it out it will bring nothing but death and suffering to fish. We all know such things are possible, people have kept fish alive with pirahnas , gars etc on occassion, but for most people its just deaths waiting to happen. Snakes have lived with mice, as have cats , there are many such tales , but on avergae 90-100 percent of the time there will be deaths.

One piece of advice like that can do so much damage. There are no really good species to keep with puffers, and in particular I can imagine celebes rainbows, a fish of which there is not an unlimited supply, being mercilessly slaughtered should the puffers turn nasty.

Everyone has their opinion, this is true, but we still have to think about the consequences of giving out advice like that.Remember since the puffers are toxic , few fish will eat them or even try to attack them. Its more a case of the other fish being able to defend themselves against incessant bites rather than the puffers themselves being eaten.


There are several species of "bumblebee goby" in the hobby too. Some are territorial and others are social, some are brackish and some are not, some are able to take freshwater for extended periods of time, hence all the confusion.Make sure you know the habits of the species you are choosing. Hypogymnogobius (brachygobius) xanthozona is for instance brackish, and territorial, pairs will often not tolerate others in their area, and in a 10 gallon a pair would dominate the tank. Brachygobius nunus is a similar species and a quite ounced fin nipper and is if anything, even more aggressive. Basically these guys have the "deterrent factor" while remaining small, but they are not per se , truly suitable, and they all hate excessive company. Its this level of personal and diligent territorial aggression that actually stops the puffers from nipping them, as a goby while not probably loking for trouble will quickly teach a puffer what trouble means if pushed.

Then there are the bumblebee cats, often confused with the gobies, Leiocassis siamensis , which is also territorial and actually a danger to small fish, and is a freshwater species, then theres Microglanis iheringi the SA bumblebee catfish, which is actually a small social and nocturnal species,freshwater, peaceful and wont eat small fish.

Make sure you check the species before you buy.

Identifying the exact species of bumblee gobies you have though is darn near impossible. It comes down to counting fin rays and unless you have a dead fish under a microscope it is impossible. Even then it's somewhat difficult and I still haven't identified exactly what species I have. Since most if not all do better in brackish and some seem to actually prefer nearly full marine conditions it just isn't a good idea to try it. All stores sell them in freshwater but they may or may not survive in it and there's no way to know until you either have healthy gobies or dead gobies a few months later. Better to be prepared to keep any bumblebee gobies in at least light brackish which will not go over well with dwarf puffers.

I've kept small dwarf pffuers with larger leaf fish... but don't know if I would reccommend it in a ten gallon. I would personally just reccommend upgrading to a twenty before diving into the realm of puffers.

Hi,
Take a look at the latest Aquarium Fish magazine
(June,2007). Its featured article is about Puffers.
In it the author discusses the species, the various
fish available, and their care.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

longhairededgit,

I have had in excess of ten of these puffers in a community with no deaths ever resulting. I find it hard to believe that they will cause deaths 90-100% of the time.

The trick is to be smart with the tank mate selection.

Hard to believe or not, that is precisely what they do.Ive known dozens of people who keep them, seen dozens of cases of mutilation, and heard many tales on hear too and throughout the net. Yours are a lucky exception, not the rule. Time after time, and I mean really quite broingly often, they start out fne, and then weeks , months or even years later the killing starts. Just believe it.

That its hard to believe is often part of the reason why it is allowed to happen so often. Its the trap. Theres no real trick with this species, you can reduce the chances a little, but basically its dumb luck, and territories and dynamics change, even in tanks. Sooner or later , most people who keep them get to experience their aggression and size irrelevant predatory habits in the end.

I think I'm going to go with 3 dwarf puffers in a 10 gallon. Are there any special requirements for their tank? I've heard to decorate the tank a lot and to use a slightly larger filter size than normal because they're messy eaters. They should have plenty of food from the accidental snails in my other tank. Are there any specific substrate requirements?

Not really, but they do sit on the bottom sometimes, and so I like to have a fine grained and dark gravel so that I can still see them. Since plants help break up the tank a little and stop some of the squabbles, I should choose something that plants grow well in.

The filter doesnt really need to be bumped up for puffers , they eat small amounts, and their bioload impact is tiny, but I guess if youre giving them live snails it will help to have that little bit extra in case of a snail that gets killed and not eaten. If a few puffers are the only inhabitants of the tank, a larger filter might have trouble staying cycled, and you might actually experience overfiltering. If heavily planted, the plants will handle much of the waste.

Puffers are rubbish in high current too, they are tiny and if the flow isnt slow they can end up spinning in a small tank like a cow in a tornado.