Can I Have A Puffer? :\

[ruffryder]

I know this doesn't belong here it belongs but for some reason it won't allow me to start a thread in the brakish section. Anywyays, I really am in love with puffers and really really want one. Right now my freshwater tank is cycling with fancy guppies. I have 2 males and 4 females in a 20g tank. After it was cycled I was wondering if I could put a dwarf puffer. I know they are aggresive and will nip at other fish but aren't they poor swimmers? How will it ever catch up to a guppy. Which type of puffer would I have the best odds with in a community tank, dwarf, green spotted, or figure 8?

 

[Tessla]

Green spotted puffers require high end brackish to full salt water when fully grown, figure eight puffers require low end brackish so neither one of those can be kept in a freshwater community. Dwarf puffers could be kept with fancy guppies in your tank if you're planning on the guppies being eaten. Puffers are actually quite good at swimming quickly when they feel like it despite their shape, fancy guppies are very impaired by their ridiculously long tails.

If you got rid of the guppies, you could keep perhaps four dwarf puffers in that tank or a single South American Puffer. If you switch to light brackish water, you could keep a single figure eight puffer, I've heard reports that they can live with bumblebee gobies as well so long as there are plenty of hiding spaces.

 

[Amunet]

I would not get a dwarf puffer.
I've only read that they are very aggressive fish and will pester other fish until they die pretty much.
I just wouldn't risk it.
If you really wanted some.. get another tank and put the lil guys into it by themselves.

 

[ruffryder]

Thnx for all the info and replies. Looks like I'm not getting one in the near future.