would puffer fish mix with jack dempseys?
2007-06-06 19:10:05 · 4 answers · asked by Brandon M 2 in Pets ➔ Fish
No...Dempseys are very aggressive freshwater fish, and depending on the variety, most puffers are "brackish" water fish.
2007-06-06 19:19:21 · answer #1 · answered by Dr. Strangelove 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No, a Jack Dempsey will eat anything he can fit in his mouth, and nibble on those he can't. As the poster above stated, the puffer secretes a toxin, their self defense mechanism, and antyhing that bites it will be poisoned.
Your Jack Dempsey will more than likely have to be kept alone, ours wouldn't even live with a pleco. He chased the poor thing to the top of the tank, we ended up having to move the pleco to our other tank.
2007-06-06 22:40:43 · answer #2 · answered by H3yd00 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No. Salinity aside (there are freshwater puffers), some of the wild-causght puffers have a toxin (tetrodotoxin) in their skin. The first time your Dempsy tried to take a bite, that could be the end of both fish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin
2007-06-06 19:36:39 · answer #3 · answered by copperhead 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If you want to keep Jack Dempseys you will have to keep them with other american cichlids of roughly the same size.. they can be kept with things like Convicts/Firemouths/Texas etc, and won't cause too much trouble because them fish can all look after themselves aslong as the size difference isn't huge.
2007-06-07 00:40:31 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋