Silk wrote:Cheers Brayshaw, i saw your other post and i hope your figure 8 gets better soon!. On topic though, do you keep it with any other fish?, if so what?.
My main aim really is to have a large tank filled with a lot of small fish, mainly for the shoaling (spelling) effect i'm hoping to see. So i'm thinking mainly tetras with some other similar sized fish, would a puffer (spotted or figure 8 i think.) be lethal to these types of fish?, it would be a single puffer, i've no real interest in a scrap between two of them, but my concern is that the puffer given their nature would just murder the tetra, or would their shoaling offer them some protection?.
Once again, any advice welcome.
I know that this is kind of an older thread, but since my website was mentioned (thanks, btw!), I wanted to chime in and make sure all your puffer questions were answered

Freshwater puffers do indeed puff, but like you pointed out, it's often out of stress. A few days ago I was kind of lazy and didn't crack the mussel into two pieces, I just dropped it in with the shell completely open, and our puffer got its head stuck for a moment (not even long enough for me to intervene) - he got so spooked he puffed up slightly and then finally went back to take some bites out of it. Although, that being said, I have watched a few of ours puff up for no good reason, too.
Contrary to a lot of info put out on the Internet, the figure 8 (T. biocellatus) is a brackish water puffer (1.003 - 1.005 SG), so if you haven't already purchased one, I would probably rethink your choice. The other spotted puffer fish that most people refer to is the green spotted puffer (Tetraodon nigroviridis), and that's a high-end brackish fish. I personally don't think that your overall goal for your tank syncs up with keeping a puffer. They really don't do well in a community setting once they mature. They are, however, a very rewarding fish to keep when they're kept in their own tank - very full of personality.