Puffers in a reef tank
- Thread starter akazzz
- Start date
Did your gobies get eaten up by the puffer? Which puffer are you keeping?
Introducing the puffer when the gobies and shrimps are big enough so that the puffer don't see them as food would be a good choice. Do you think so?
Another scenario is to introduce them all 3 together (puffer, gobies and shrimps), what do you think?
I have heard people introducing lionfish together with other smaller fishes together so that they grow up together hence the lionfish not seeing the other smaller fishes as food to nom on.
That whole "introduce them together" argument rarely works...and if it works it generally isn't because the larger predator no longer sees its tankmate as food, its because the owner feeds them well. If you put predators in with prey you will most undoubtedly run the risk of losing a fish. a puffer and a shrimp isn't going to work unless that shrimp is twice the size of the puffer.
This ^. The introduce them together technique only works for territorial fish. When it comes to predator and prey, the predator will ALWAYS look at the other as prey no matter when you introduce them. Also any shrimp with a puffer will never work regardless of how big the shrimp is. Puffers are extremely aggressive already regularly attacking prey much larger than themselves. Look at pea puffers. Tiny little things but they're notorious for fin nipping fish much larger than themselves.
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when i was talking about when you introduce them, i meant that the puffer should go in after your goby shrimp combo and other fish are well established. meaning they they have a hide hole ready to go. if you really want to try this i would suggest trying either a Solandri Puffer, or a Valentini puffer. from what i know these two are your best chance at this working, but it is still a risk. also all puffers are not the same, they are not all crazy aggressive killing machines. i have some figure 8 puffers for a while and they never once attacked my fiddler crabs, nor my little mollies. would i call that normal? probably not, but every puffer is different. liveaquaria.com labels both of these fish as peaceful. which means they are probably likely to get along with the fish in your tank. either way before you decided i would continue to look for people who have had success doing what you wan to do.
also if you get a tiger pistol shrimp, it might be able to fend off one of those smaller puffers since it can get 3inches.
