My sweet pea (puffer) in a community tank

PluckyD · August 20

Just wanted to share a couple of pictures of my pea puffer. I have always wanted a puffer but was afraid of their care requirements, so I decided to try just one and make sure I was comfortable with feeding, etc. It wasn’t specifically planned, but when I saw one that seemed special to me at the LFS, I figured it was time.

The first picture is of her in quarantine with the clown killifish I got at the same time (part of a small group of them), and they would just swim around with each other. I was waiting for the pea to get murderous but when she failed to, I thought maybe she was still too young.

After the first two weeks of not witnessing her eat a single bite of anything I offered (blood worms, pond snails, etc), she was still clearly gaining weight and growing. I figured she was just hunting on her own, but I was worried the 5 gallon tank I had her in wouldn’t sustain her. I ended up putting her in my 60 gallon community and she’s been thriving there for the past 6 months now. She lives with a pearl gourami, betta, cardinal tetras, harlequin rasboras, rainbow shiners, medaka rice fish, hillstream loaches, otos, shrimp, snails, etc. and they don’t bother her and she doesn’t bother them.

The second picture is of her hanging out in a little nest of buce. I was rearranging and didn’t realize I was moving her around with it at first! I moved it from one place to another and she would just hover within the clump as if she were one with it.

Her community-friendly temperament does seem to come at the cost of some, shall we say, personableness? She doesn’t interact with me at all either unfortunately, but honestly, I enjoy her presence in the community and have other wet pets to chat with.