How large of an aquarium for pufferfish?

[legendaryfrog]

How large of an aquarium would you suggest for two figure 8 pufferfish?

as you can see by my sig, im keeping 2 in an 80 gallon.

should i go bigger, or is it fine?

my neighbor, who previously owned the fish, kept them together in 160.

 

[Ghost_knife]

how do they interact?

 

[WeeNe858]

you can keep the in there... just add lots of plants

 

[Tommy Gun]

you can keep the in there... just add lots of plants

If this is a true saltwater tank, you would be limited to a very small selection of 'plants' per say, at least from my understanding. There are some, like turtle grass and kelp, which are the two I see commonly in and around my neck of the woods. I had thought a little bit about adding kelp to my tank, but I found out that it grows out of control too easily for most tanks.

I also had thought that figure 8 puffers were truly only brackish water fish and would only go to saltwater when they were breeding. Since no one has said differently yet, I would assume that I am wrong, but wanted to bring it up just in case I'm not. At least with brackish water, you could keep a larger variety of plants.

 

[JardiniBoy]

you can keep the in there... just add lots of plants

I'm not too sure if the plants will survive in the brackish/salt environment that these fish need as they mature. Also ... the OP says in his (her) sig that the tank is "SW" ... salt water!

 

[JardiniBoy]

Sorry ... IMHO 80G is fine for 2 puffers with regards to size, but I'm not sure about aggression territorial problems cos I've never kept more than one together.

 

[legendaryfrog]

they're not aggresive, just very shy towards eachother.

for example, when i seperate the tank, they'll come out of their caves

so basically im saying: is 40 gallons enough for a pufferfish to live happily?

 

[Liz]

I believe that is plenty of space for 2 figure-8's, I think they only need around 20-30 gallons a piece or less.

I don't know why you are going saltwater with figure-8s though, I thought it was common opinion that they maxed out in low to mid range brackish?

Are these f8s or T. nigroviridis?

 

[Tommy Gun]

Yea, I would check out this website to verify exactly what you have. In any case, of three almost identical puffers, none of them are true saltwater fish and two of the three are very much freshwater fish. There is a pretty big difference in the water types and if you want to keep them as long as possible, I would make sure you are doing things right here. Besides, you could save a boat load on marine salt if you dont really need them.

http://puffernet.tripod.com/confusion.html

I was always under the impression that 20 gallons was a great sized tank for one of these types of puffers (the freshwater/brackish water versions, with a few exceptions for the non-dwarfs of course). I would be leery about keeping any fish in a tank that will not come out unless it is secluded or sepertated from another fish and would assume, to be on hte safe side, that this is a sign of stress, or possible stress. I know in saltwater, puffers are very susceptible to Ich, and so I would think the same would apply for your type.

Then again, maybe you know something we don't or have a saltwater puffer that was mislabeled.

 

[legendaryfrog]

well i guess their not figure 8's then.

surely they would have died if they were kept in saltwater.