20gal Dwarf Puffers: with friends?

[insecurity]

Hey. I'm planning on stocking my 20gal tank with dwarf puffers. I would prefer to have a few friends in the tank for the puffer but at the same time, I don't want to be reckless.

As always, I have a backup plan: If I think that I won't be able to successfuly house the puffers with tankmates, I'll get 3-4 puffers instead.

Here's what I'm thinking:
2 dwarf puffers / 4 cory cats

Anybody have firsthand experience with attemptig to house puffers with cories?

 

[Duydawg]

idk much about mixing the dwarf puffers and cories ( I am buying 2 dwarf puffers for my 10 gallon soon)

BUT

i know that in a heavily planted/ decorated tank that a total of six fishes could potentially get a long since 20 gallons is quite a bit of space.

I honestly think you will be okay. It depends on the sex of the dwarf puffer as well, as two male puffers would be quite interesting to watch

 

[insecurity]

I'm also thinking of having the cories already in the tank, for when the puffers get introduced. This way, by my logic, that the puffers may accept the cories as part of their environment rather than putting in the puffers and having them establish the entire tank as their territory.

 

[insecurity]

I'm thinking of scratching my idea of tankmates, but I deduced that any smaller sized catfish might be suitable.

 

[VioletEmber]

I only recently got my pea puffers and in a weird twist I ended up putting my four freebie endler's in there with them. ( the guy at the LFS thought they were just guppy fry so he just gave them to me- tee hee). Strangely enough, the puffers don't even look at them. And they definitely are old enough to be aggressive with other fish I tried in there. Maybe the endler's are too fast for them? Anyway, it was a sort of a whim to try it out and it is going ok so far and the endler's give some color and action to the top half of the tank. Just my experience!

 

[VioletEmber]

PS- they don't seen interested in the Pygmy Cory I have in there either.

 

[bkiggy]

As small as they are DP are nippy and territorial. Little guys with big attitudes. Catfish will eat them, DP will pick at fins of fish - more than 1 DP is not recommended - or have a lot of hiding and swimming space

 

[librarygirl]

I would say maybe Otos and/or maybe shrimp. Anything else will likely be killed eventually. It can be done but it might not be worth the gamble. Dwarf Puffers : Home