Figure 8 puffer in reef tank

[John08007]

From what I remember these little guys don't know what coral is because they're brackish, so they leave it alone. Anyone have an insight on them? My LfS has several of then in their brackish section, thinking about putting one in my mixed reef. Liveaquaria says they are semi aggressive.

If I get one, should I slowly added saltwater to him, till its close to the sg of the tank over the course of several hours?

 

[Doctorgori]

get more input but if I recall don’t those lil guys nip fins and eat snails? OTOH its been a long time since I even thought of those

 

[vetteguy53081]

Very risky. It needs to sharpen and trim its teeth and will use coral to accomplish that

 

[aquakj]

I have one but I dont have it in a reef, however based on his behavior it is possible that he doesn't touch the coral. I say this because I feed, pellets and flakes and algae to the tank and he never bothers with that stuff, but the moment I drop krill or mysis shrimp in the tank its game on. If you Really want one that bad, my advice would be to set it up in a different tank for a few weeks, feed it shrimp and once its use to only eating shrimp then transfer it to the mixed reef, that way he or she is always expecting shrimp and doesn't care about nipping or going after corals.

 

[jskidds2294]

Figure 8 puffers are fully brackish fish. Yes they have been caught outside brackish waters in full salt or fresh, but records show they only venture their for a short time. The salinity they live in is 1.004-1.016 anything lower or higher for long and you will kill their kidneys. Same goes for green spot puffers.

Also we’re @vetteguy53081 did you here they would do that? I’ve never witnessed a smaller fresh/brackish puffer do this behavior to a hard surface. In fact a figure 8 probably wouldn’t even recognize what coral is at first.