I have a 90 gallon african tank currently with 9 fish.. 2 electric yellows, 1 red zebra, 2 elongates, 1 rusty, 1 kennyi, 1 albino brichardi, all under an inch and a 6 inch pleco. The tank is 60% rocks, and 10% plants. I want to add a figure 8 puffer and I asked someone at my LFS and the guy said that it was not a good idea to do that, but ive read stuff on the net where people do have them and they get along good.. im more concerned for my cichlids then the puffer but i really want to have one, any sugestions?
African Cichlids And Puffers ??
- Thread starter Demonliez
- Start date
i tried that setup in a 100 gallon tan and it didn't work. they got alonggreat for a week and then 1 day i looked in my tank and saw that 7 of my cichlids had chunks taken out of them. bad idea. don't do it.
Although there are puffers that come from the Rift Lakes, figure eight's are not among them. They are brackish water fish, and when kept in hard but not salty water they have a tendency to, er, die. Not, however, before they've taken a few bites out of your Rift Lake cichlids. As opposed to a win-win situation, this is what we should call MAD (mutual assured destruction) or a lose-lose scenario. Not recommended.
I once kept some figure 8's with my african cichlids and they did fine. I had to rid one of them that kept fin piking the others didnt do this. I've notice some will some wont. From my understanding they can be acclimated for freshwater. I had them moved to my wifes tank that is brackish but the puffers were in freshwater for 4 years. I did notice that once they acclimated to brackish they did sky rocket in growth. I will agree that although they may be able to acclimate to freshwater, the brackish water is a key to there continual growth. Also heard that by keeping them in freshwater stunts there growth but there organs will continue to grow which leads to there early death by not being moved to brackish.
So can damsels be "acclimated" to hard/high TDS water. Does that mean it is good for them? Which do you prefer, to keep your fish healthy or kill them whether quickly or slowly?
xhibition said:
Thanks for your post, you helped alot and now im not gonna try putting puffers in with the cichlids, I have a couple 50 gallon tanks under my stairs so one day i might set one up and have just puffers in it, cuz i really want those fish but i also dont want them to die just because i think they look good