dog faced puffer or masked puffer with sps and softie

[jojo]

Well I know it might be a long shot I know puffers will eat snails and such but will they eat softies and lps??

[(B)reef Encounter]

Puffers are some of the coolest fish out there.Unfortunetly not recommended for reef tanks, they have a tendency to eat or nip at everything in your tank.

[Cosine]

I'd say others know better than me but from what I've read on porcupine puffers is that they are carnivores and leave corals alone.
Now I could be wrong plus this is a different puffer than you asked about but this is just what I've read and seen!

[icebear]

puffers will taste-test everything at least once.... and in many cases, once is enough

IME

i like dogface tho.....

[tejo]

I have a valentini puffer in my reef tank and it get along well..

[jojo]

So far what I understand is that puffers wont eat corals they will just nibble on everything?? I'm thinking it might be worth a try if I got a small dogface perhaps and just sorta monitered him?? Or maybe I would be better of just getting a smaller species of puffer like the valentini???

[tdwyatt]

Puffers belong to the family Diodontidae ("fused tooth"), the porcupinefishes and burrfishes. The family name refers to the fused beak-like teeth these fishes display. The teeth are used for the rendering of their prey items into consumable foods (snails, bivalves, echinoderms, crustaceans, etc). Such a consumption of hard materials wears the teeth down fairly rapidly, such that these creatures have evolved teeth that are replaced from the dental base by continuous growth. In order for these fishes to wear these teeth down in the absence of hard prey, they will graze the surface of live rock, hard substrates, or coral to wear down these teeth. Depending on your specimen and the foods offered, they may or may not be problematic with stony corals in captive systems. The occasional feeding of whole live clams or oysters may prevent the coral-consumption activity.


Too bad Scott Michael doesn't come by here on occasion, I understand these are some of his favorite fishes.

[jojo]

Thanks tdwyatt the only corals I am keeping in the tank that the puffer would be going into are lps and softies. So I wouldnt have to worry about them chewing on stony corals I would have no problems throwing some grocery store clams and mussels and such in the tank to keep the puffers teeth in check. I think this might be worth a try. I am considering picking up a small dogface they have at my lfs store tonight.

[tdwyatt]

Heh! not a bad idea, just make sure to have the clams in a separate system initially so that when they open they dump their tidal "Poop" into a separate water column first (a 1 gal container at room temp should be ok)