Puffer Fish Advice??

[funnyfish4u]

anyone have any experience with puffer fish interested in buying some for my new tank saw some fugu puffer at my lfs any advice on them would be helpfull what other fish can they go with etc...?

[HUKIT]

What size tank are you going to use? Fubu's get big...not little green spotted size by very large even should be housed in a six foot tank. They also require a brackish set up meaning using marine salt to get range of salinity 1.005 and 1.015...becareful and watch for salt creep. Tankmates should be chosen for fish that may be attacked by the Fubus's there's alot of reading on forums for information on these guys. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[Patterson333]

Yea, a really good buddy of mine had two small Puffers (maybe Figure 8's) in his 72 bowfront, with Malawi haps and frontosa, and they were so aggressive towards the other fish he ended up having to rehome them (they had a really nasty method of biting out chunks from the fish).

Don't know if it's the same for all pufferfish though, so definitely do your research. Oh and as far as the salinity goes, you should probably do as recommended and make your tank slightly brackish, but if it's any consolation, that friend of mine has had them for 2 years in freshwater (pH 8.2, hard), and they're still fat and healthy.

[HUKIT]

Well maybe your friend should learn to research his fish better, since keeping brackish fish in freshwater lowers their immune system, causing disease and early death...all goals for aquarists everywhere. Also very poor choice of tankmates before and after the keeping haps and fonts in a small tank. Maybe he should look into snakes or gerbils.

[Patterson333]

Lol agreed. And I wasn't trying to make a recommendation to keep brackish in freshwater, sorry if it seemed like I was, I was just recounting my friend's experience with puffers (it's fresh in my mind because he was telling me about it just yesterday).