Tommy Gunnz
Fish Crazy
Hey everyone.
So over the past couple of months, I have been working pretty hard on my stocking options for my SW tank. It is 90 gallons, bowfront, with sump, powerheads (with good flow), and a skimmer. It is using all natural filtration system and my water parameters are very good minus having low calcium (just bare minimum I believe at about 400 to 420 ppm) but that is ok as this is a FOWLR tank for right now.
I still have a porcupine puffer fish in the tank with no real good option of trading it away or anything as this is my wife's fish and my kids are highly attached to the darn thing. (I know that sounds silly, but trust me, I have to bend quite a bit just to keep this tank). I have had this puffer, a lionfish, and a snowflake moray eel in the tank for about a month, but chose to trade the latter two in for some store credit because the tank appeared empty 99% of the time and I may look into a reef system later on in life.
So, after trading in those fish, I waited a bit and decided to go with a bicolored angel fish (which I have now), one more bigger type fish (medium range-ish with a max of about 8 to 10 inches) that is peaceful and reef compatible, and a school of smaller, more active fish (I was thinking in the range of about a dozen or so. To start on my school of fish, I chose to go with green chromis (or green damsels) and bought 5 of them.
Long story short, even though I have weened my puffer fish off of live food for over two months now, I am 100% sure that he is the culprit behind me finding a dead chromis every morning. I am now down to two of them and am going to take them into the LFS later so that their lives are spared. That leaves me with two real options as I can see it:
1.) Say 'screw my family' and take the puffer in as well and later get two larger fish like the one I explained earlier that I wanted.
OR
2.) Find a smaller, active, schooling type fish that can buck up to the darn puffer fish so that everyone is happy in the end.
My question is...is there such a fish that could be safe from the puffer? I was thinking about the Yellow Tailed Blue Damsels since they would stand out well against my black background. I have also kept two yellow tailed damsels in the tank prior to this (when I was testing my tank for being cycled) with the puffer in there as well, so that is why I am curious about these fish. I also know that they are less aggressive than most damsels, but I am reading some sort of conflicting info on if these fish can work well in a larger school such as a dozen or so in one tank.
As a side note, I have read a TON about this puffer fish and every article or fish compatability chart I see states that this puffer should be good with any fish other than one (pseudochromis, which is NOT the chromis I have) as long as they are not fry and my puffer is not regularly eating live foods such as feeder fish. I guess that this puffer I have is the exception and I know you may not believe this, but twice this puffer has tried to cover up the fact that he killed these fish by sitting on top of them and no matter how sneaky I try to be, he will stop stalking the fish as soon as I am in the room and turn the lights on in the room to see him as this usually happens at night.
Any help, ideas, or info would really be appreciated!
So over the past couple of months, I have been working pretty hard on my stocking options for my SW tank. It is 90 gallons, bowfront, with sump, powerheads (with good flow), and a skimmer. It is using all natural filtration system and my water parameters are very good minus having low calcium (just bare minimum I believe at about 400 to 420 ppm) but that is ok as this is a FOWLR tank for right now.
I still have a porcupine puffer fish in the tank with no real good option of trading it away or anything as this is my wife's fish and my kids are highly attached to the darn thing. (I know that sounds silly, but trust me, I have to bend quite a bit just to keep this tank). I have had this puffer, a lionfish, and a snowflake moray eel in the tank for about a month, but chose to trade the latter two in for some store credit because the tank appeared empty 99% of the time and I may look into a reef system later on in life.
So, after trading in those fish, I waited a bit and decided to go with a bicolored angel fish (which I have now), one more bigger type fish (medium range-ish with a max of about 8 to 10 inches) that is peaceful and reef compatible, and a school of smaller, more active fish (I was thinking in the range of about a dozen or so. To start on my school of fish, I chose to go with green chromis (or green damsels) and bought 5 of them.
Long story short, even though I have weened my puffer fish off of live food for over two months now, I am 100% sure that he is the culprit behind me finding a dead chromis every morning. I am now down to two of them and am going to take them into the LFS later so that their lives are spared. That leaves me with two real options as I can see it:
1.) Say 'screw my family' and take the puffer in as well and later get two larger fish like the one I explained earlier that I wanted.
OR
2.) Find a smaller, active, schooling type fish that can buck up to the darn puffer fish so that everyone is happy in the end.
My question is...is there such a fish that could be safe from the puffer? I was thinking about the Yellow Tailed Blue Damsels since they would stand out well against my black background. I have also kept two yellow tailed damsels in the tank prior to this (when I was testing my tank for being cycled) with the puffer in there as well, so that is why I am curious about these fish. I also know that they are less aggressive than most damsels, but I am reading some sort of conflicting info on if these fish can work well in a larger school such as a dozen or so in one tank.
As a side note, I have read a TON about this puffer fish and every article or fish compatability chart I see states that this puffer should be good with any fish other than one (pseudochromis, which is NOT the chromis I have) as long as they are not fry and my puffer is not regularly eating live foods such as feeder fish. I guess that this puffer I have is the exception and I know you may not believe this, but twice this puffer has tried to cover up the fact that he killed these fish by sitting on top of them and no matter how sneaky I try to be, he will stop stalking the fish as soon as I am in the room and turn the lights on in the room to see him as this usually happens at night.
Any help, ideas, or info would really be appreciated!
