Puffers + Cories

[chibi]

I was thinking about maybe getting one of those tiny pufferfish in my 6 gallon to replace my betta. Do puffers get along with pygmy cories? I hear they're kind of nippy...

Just out of curiousity, can puffers live together? My friend might give me her 10 gallon and I was thinking of maybe putting like 3 of those tiny dwarf puffers in there.

 

[lighter]

i heard puffers need high pH water, and cories need neutral to lower pH...

 

[timmystood]

Dwarf puffers and cories could work in theory. However, the problem is that not ever puffer is the same. Some are quite nippy and others can be quite tame. Yes is the answer to the dwarfs living together but 6 gallons is a little small to achieve that. I would set up and tank for just the puffers. I always recommend about 6 dwarf puffers in a about 15gallons of water. Just be sure to provide plenty of hiding spaces and also open swimming space (there is a happy medium!)

 

[eskcarr]

Just out of one experience I had 2 small puffers in a five gallon tank one live four about an hour the other about a day.. I think the two banged up each other enough than neither made it. However this was about five years ago now adays I wouldn't have let it get to that point.. Now when I see a problem about to start I don't wait to see if it happens.... So if it starts to look bad just separate them don't hope it will work out.

Good luck..... Puffers are really cool!!!!

 

[timmystood]

Just out of one experience I had 2 small puffers in a five gallon tank one live four about an hour the other about a day.. I think the two banged up each other enough than neither made it.

Yeah, ideally they prefer either single living or living in large groups. Otherwise, the aggression gets focused on one fish, like your situation.

 

[K.J.]

Uh... aren't dwarfs the ones that attack pretty much anything?

 

[timmystood]

Pretty much

 

[Maximus]

Plenty of open swimming space?

I thought you had to create a complex environment, In
Order to beak eyelines, and reduce aggression?



Maximus

 

[timmystood]

Plenty of open swimming space?

I thought you had to create a complex environment, In
Order to beak eyelines, and reduce aggression?

Maximus

Well, being members of the puffer family they do follow the same rule of plenty of hiding places matched with open swimming space but yes, they differ slighty, like you say, in that they do prefer more of the other. However, like all tetradon they are open swimmers and this ideally should be mimmicked in the home aquarium. I've had a few published articles on the care of puffers and one of them talks about caring for the tetradon travancorius.. here