Will Any Of My Fish Live With Dwarf Puffers?

[martypants16]

I am looking to buy another tropical tank with the aim of keeping a dwarf puffer, but if possible would like to also move across a few other fish to make both tanks more equally distributed.
I have a siamese fighter ( a no no i realise), cardinal tetras, corydoras sterbai, ghost shrimps, platys, upside down catfish, kooli loach and a bristle nose plec.
Will any of them be able to co-exist with a dwarf puffer?
Any help much appreciated........and if the answer is no, then what will !!!
Many thanks. Martypants

 

[catxx]

possibly your shrimp. but nothing else.
dwarf puffers generally don't like any tankmates.

otos can do, but if it attracts the attention of your puffer it will go for it.

p.s. this doesn't need to be in the "brackish" forum

 

[Fella]

I am looking to buy another tropical tank with the aim of keeping a dwarf puffer, but if possible would like to also move across a few other fish to make both tanks more equally distributed.
I have a siamese fighter ( a no no i realise), cardinal tetras, corydoras sterbai, ghost shrimps, platys, upside down catfish, kooli loach and a bristle nose plec.
Will any of them be able to co-exist with a dwarf puffer?
Any help much appreciated........and if the answer is no, then what will !!!
Many thanks. Martypants

DP's are not brackish fish at any stretch of the imagination. Fresh water is what they need not brackish, so this is definitely in the wrong forum.


Only tank mates I have ever heard of getting on with DP's are (occasionally) South American Puffers, Bumblebee Gobies and Ottos. Everything else is a no go, as they fin nip fish many times greater than their own size.

 

[martypants16]

Thanks for the advice, sorry if its in the wrong forum, i only read the forum titles and it said puffers in this one, thats why i posted here.

 

[bogwood]

'No'...

... try Ottocinclus (I have one with my DP in a 5UKG) but only in an established tank with plenty of algae... or shrimp...

...but be prepared to look in the tank one day and see them 'chewed'... DPs are mellow when juvenile but as they mature, can turn into aggressive little ****ers...

... definately FRESH water...

 

[fishfishfish]

i have kept several dwarfs in my 15.the only thing they nipped were the angels(1 RIP now),male betta(rip other day),male guppys(rip a good while ago).basically anything slow with long fins.cardinals may be ok.not sure about kuhli as a few of my fish sre new including gobys,kuhli,& lace cat

 

[SirMinion]

As mentioned above, dwarf puffers are little darlings for the first six months to a year,even schooling with each other, then suddenly they can wipe out their tankmates overnight including fish twice their size and will also kill each other if too densely stocked.

Shimp are a bad idea as invertebrates are the puffer's natural diet and they shrimp will certainly be harried and killed eventually.
Even fast moving fish like tetras are not safe because dwarf puffers will hunt at night while thetetras are immoble. I kept a shoal of 11 Rummynose (Firenose?) tetras with five Dwarf Puffers for many months until one morning looked in the tank to find all but a few dead and dismembered.

The only fish that Dwarf Puffers can reliably be kept with is bristlenose plecs.

 

[jkrekord]

SirMinion yet again you have to bring out the picture
i hope that helps people realize puffer can and tend to be vicous an cause a lot of damage to tankmates if they feel like it wich is quite often
beware of the cuteness

 

[martypants16]

OK, change of plan...........................
Now looking at a red tailed red eye puffer. Not as aggressive as dwarves i hear, will the same rule still apply though as to these not being very good tank mates for these fish?

 

[SirMinion]

OK, change of plan...........................
Now looking at a red tailed red eye puffer. Not as aggressive as dwarves i hear, will the same rule still apply though as to these not being very good tank mates for these fish?

Red tailed red eye puffers (t.irrubesco) are considerably MORE aggresive than dwarfs, not less.

There is NO puffer that can be kept reliably with outher fish species.

Fresh & brackishwater Puffers of any species are NOT community fish. Period.

 

[martypants16]

Ok, thanks for all the advice

 

[pufferpoison]

i'm going to get a lot of crap for this , but i have 2 DP's in my community tank and as long as their are lots of plants and cover, they seem to be fine, but when i took my plants out for the day, i noticed they terrorized the tank, put the plants back in, they were fine again??? dont' know probably come home one day and find 2 Bloated puffers and nothing else. this is in a 55G also

 

[pica_nuttalli]

i'm going to get a lot of crap for this , but i have 2 DP's in my community tank and as long as their are lots of plants and cover, they seem to be fine, but when i took my plants out for the day, i noticed they terrorized the tank, put the plants back in, they were fine again??? dont' know probably come home one day and find 2 Bloated puffers and nothing else. this is in a 55G also

how long have you had them? it's probably just a matter of time...