Dogfaced Pufferfish?!

[AquaAlexp]

I am strongly considering getting a dogface pufferfish. I would like to know how hardy they are. I have a manila puffer and he is very easy to take care of, in fact he came from BZA and is doing well he is going on 7 months with me and has grown quite a bit.
Now I have tried yellow belly dogfaced puffers in the past both were 5-6'' plus but never once ate in my tank swam very active but never ate and then eventually died. I offered shrimp mussels clams and frozen foods.
I really love the looks of a dogface and think it's a show stopping fish.
If I get a small 2-4'' one are my chances of success good? Could I keep him in 120 with my manila pufferfish?
Thanks for your help.

 

[cougareyes]

I have a yellow belly now, he eats out my hand. I think when I first got him he was so soon out of the ocean he had a hard time finding, or maybe even relating to what was food. I've had regular dogface also and one thing you can say about puffers is they love to eat. Maybe the one you lost had some sort of parasite. If at last resort to settle them in you could feed them something live like ghosties or fiddler crabs. I've never kept my puffers with another so I'm not sure about keeping him with the manila. For the most my experience has been puffers are pretty hardy, just make sure he doesn't have a sunken in belly.

 

[Walla2GSP]

I have a 6" dogface in my aggressive FOWLR tank with 2 - 3" GSP, a tomato clown, a lawnmower blenny, and a matted filefish. I can tell you two things about dogface from my research and personal experience. Dogface are aggressive and shy at the same time. He flat out eats any invertebrates I put in the tank for clean up, but my 1.25" filefish took his shrimp the other day and he pouted for two days and wouldn't eat. When he comes up to eat everybody gets out of his way, but if anybody bumps into him he will go hide in the corner or in the live rock and not move all day. If you get one and get it eating well in a QT before introducing it to the 120 you might be okay, but I really wouldn't try it with less than 200 gallons. Both the Manila and Dogface get to about the same size and have similar temperaments from what I've been told, so you could put one or both off food, could get fighting, or you could be completely fine, it's really hard to predict the eventual outcome with the varying personalities of Arothron individuals.

 

[AquaAlexp]

I have a 6" dogface in my aggressive FOWLR tank with 2 - 3" GSP, a tomato clown, a lawnmower blenny, and a matted filefish. I can tell you two things about dogface from my research and personal experience. Dogface are aggressive and shy at the same time. He flat out eats any invertebrates I put in the tank for clean up, but my 1.25" filefish took his shrimp the other day and he pouted for two days and wouldn't eat. When he comes up to eat everybody gets out of his way, but if anybody bumps into him he will go hide in the corner or in the live rock and not move all day. If you get one and get it eating well in a QT before introducing it to the 120 you might be okay, but I really wouldn't try it with less than 200 gallons. Both the Manila and Dogface get to about the same size and have similar temperaments from what I've been told, so you could put one or both off food, could get fighting, or you could be completely fine, it's really hard to predict the eventual outcome with the varying personalities of Arothron individuals.

Ok awesome I will give it a try. I really have always wanted a dogfaced so I pray it works out. The Manila did perfectly fine with the yellow belly, so I think he may adjust to a dogface. The only puffer he was ever aggressive to was a porcupine who I was holding for a friend. I am thinking a dogface of similar size.