Are some puffer fish reef safe?

[xenon]

A local reefer has a puffer in his reef with no problems.

Is this normal or are some types of puffers reef safe?

 

[Monkey55]

from what I understand, most puffer fish like to nibble on corals and polyps. But I suppose you would be fine I f you kept It well fed and were very lucky. The biggest danger though is to not scare it. If you startlee the fish once and it disperses poison, It will wipe out your tank. Your friend is lucky he has a fish that is not easily startled. I would not take that gamble though. I can't afford to replace all my livestack.

 

[Tbrew]

Puffers eat cleanup crews. So if you don't need snails or hermits, go for it!

 

[dendro982]

I have the small valentini puffer, no problems:
- with hermits,
- with fish with long fins and skin appendages,
- frogspawn, hammer, sun coral, candycane, scolymia, lobophyllia, xenia, anthelia, GSP, BSP, yellow polyps, mushrooms, Kenya tree (capnella).

So far (almost an year) victims were:
- 2 turbo snails, other snails are waiting for a night to start feeding, but large hermits hunt them too;
- twice bited dorsal fin of the clown fish, that wanted to school together - wiggling right before puffer's face - but the same clown did much worse to the chromises who wanted to school with him, so - puffer was more considerate. And fin regenerated both times is 1.5-2 months.
- edible algae;
- LR is not too live in the open to grazing areas (but hermits could contribute to this problem too).

The worst part was - it refused to east shellfish, harder than krill, teeth overgrown, and just today did puffer's dental surgery - just like in this tutorial .

Very bright, intelligent and considerate fish - valentini puffer, ugly face - but good personality.

 

[grav]

I've seen / known of several that caused few or no problems as in the previous post. Yes they can nip and such but I think they end up in FOWLR tanks more just due to the size and amount of food they eat.

 

[reefshadow]

I second the small tobys like the valentini, but most inverts like shrimp, snails are going to be toast eventually. They are known fin nippers so combining them with long finned slow fish would be a no IMO. My valentini also liked to bite the silicone in the tank, leaving bite marks in it, ugly. I think it's relatively rare for them to bother corals. Pros? Small adult size, very cute, great personalities, wide range of accepted food, hardy as heck! Mine would spit water, beg, and was just generally cute as a button. The silicone thing was just too much though, so he didn't make the cut for the 240.

I would get another one if I could be sure it wouldn't eat the silicone!

 

[dendro982]

I would get another one if I could be sure it wouldn't eat the silicone!

I thought about getting the opposite sex for my puffer, but if they will be of the same - will they attack each other, as the mandarins and scooters do? Any info on how to distinguish them? Thanks.