ladylouroll

i am looking into buying 3 or 4 pufferfish who will live in there own tank. i was wondering can you mix them? as i like the figure 8 ones and the spotted ones. what would people recommend?

pinkfloydpuffer

Well, it really depends on what you are looking for. What size of tank do you want? Freshwater, brackish, or saltwater?

ladylouroll

im most likely going to get about a 12/15g tank. i do prefer the smaller ones. i think id probably be better with fresh so what breeds would that leave me with?

pinkfloydpuffer

With a tank that small all you can do are dwarf puffers. But they are so cute and so much fun. I have a 20g full of them. I think you'd like them

ladylouroll

if i got a slightly bigger tank say 15g/20g what could i do with that then? i read somewhere its not a good idea to mix breeds of puffers? dont happen to have any you would part with do you pinkfloydpuffer?

pinkfloydpuffer

With a 15-20g you could get one figure 8 puffer, they're brackish. Puffers are rather specialized, and thus it's not good to mix them. Plus differing levels of aggression could lead to problems. With a 20g there are a few freshwater species you could go with, like the red eyed puffers. Those guys are really cute. Any puffers I would part with? Never! Garth, Pistachio, Kiwi, Mariah, Ambellina, Josephine, Jesse, and Mayo are my sweet babies hehe

MaddieLynn

If you can find them, red eyed puffers are adorable! They're like a slightly bigger version of dwarf puffers. Their care is about the same, but they get to around 2" so you can't fit quite as many in a tank as you could dwarf puffers in the same tank. (Did that make any sense?)

I recently got some completely by accident. I thought they were dwarf puffers, but they were the rare red eyes instead! I have a pair (1 male and 1 female) in a 10 gallon tank. They're both around 1" right now and the male is slightly larger than the female. You can see them here:

Meet my (rare) puffers!

ladylouroll

ah fair enough. how do puffers get on in communities? i no they can be fin nippers what fish do they mix with ok?

pinkfloydpuffer

Red eyes will NOT mix with other fish. Dwarfs seem to always work with otos. I can say from experience that a community with puffers is just an all-around bad idea... most of the time you end up with injured/dead fish.

ladylouroll

ok do dwarfs mix with figure 8 puffers well?

pinkfloydpuffer

Nope. Figure 8s are slightly brackish, dwarfs are freshwater. And the f8s would probably eat the dps...

MaddieLynn

No, dwarf puffers are freshwater and figure eights are brackish. Unless you are having dwarf puffers with otos, it it STROGNLY recommended to keep a species only tank.

MaddieLynn

PFP got me. Hehe. Listen to the puffer expert, not me!

pinkfloydpuffer

Hehe, you said the same thing as I did

ladylouroll

oki dokie. how easy/hard are puffers to breed i was thinking mayb get a male and a female?

ladylouroll

i have looked on about 3 websites that all say figure of 8 puffers can be fresh or brackish... ?

pinkfloydpuffer

Hehe... try "Difficult"

They can, but do better in brackish, more resistant to disease, etc

ladylouroll

ah fair enough. i think i shall look into some dwarf and ottos then

ladylouroll

im going to get my puffer fish in 2 weeks i have a good supply of pest snails breeded up. what else do i need? how many snails per day does a dwarf puffer eat on average? thanks

pinkfloydpuffer

They don't need very many. Just a few a week really.

ladylouroll

ok thanks . do you feed yours any other foods apart from snails? pinkfloydpuffer?

pinkfloydpuffer

Yeah, mine love frozen bloodworms. You can also try frozen brine shrimp and mysis shrimp.

ladylouroll

ok my other fish eat those to so already stocked on those thanks alot

Lucy

Doesn't look like PFP's on line, but she wrote up this General Guide to Puffer Care which includes food.

Good luck with your DP's they're adorable.

Edit: Wow PFP, that was fast. lol, That's what I get for answering the phone in the middle of a post.