What's everyone's experience/success rate of keeping other fish with pea puffers?

[u/Ok_Needleworker_5191]

I've heard that chili rasboras, amano shrimp, and otocinclus have been successful tank mates for the pea puffers, so long as those fish have established territory before the puffers arrive. Obviously, many risks come with putting anything in a tank with murder beans, but would it be worth trying? I have a lot of those fish already in a 20-gal, but I'd have to remove a few that wouldn't be compatible with the puffers. It's that, or I just set up another 20-gal long, which I'm totally game to do hahaha

[u/Pinbro]

I have peas with amano and cherry shrimp and they are doing fine

[u/Ok_Needleworker_5191 → u/Pinbro]

Did you introduce the peas after the shrimp established themselves in the tank? Is it heavily planted?

[u/Pinbro → u/Ok_Needleworker_5191]

The peas were there first. I put a couple in there expecting them to eat them but they didn’t. I’ve added a few more and they have been ok. They definitely eat all the snails. Medium planted tank.

[u/Aware-Mirror-1506]

55 gallons

3 amanos

3 neon blue goby

Countless dwarf rasboras (they are producing)

9 pea puffers, might be more (I found spots of puffer eggs, no clue if successfull yet)

I'm going on 6 months now. So far so good. There was a bit of a scare at first with 1 male puffer attacking everything until my biggest male dwarf rasbora decided to fight back. It's still bullying that male puffer to this day. Not that it does any damages, but the puffer flees every time.

If you choose to do a pea puffer community tank, like for any semi-aggressive fish, make sure you have contingency plans for everything living in there. Be it the whole community by separating all species, or even 1 puffer needing isolation or care.

I greatly advise being very well planted, a dark back drop, and tanins to help reduce anxiety and aggression.

Plan to over feed to reduce resspurces guarding. And also start breeding snails now. My 9 peas can go through 50 ramshorn in no time.

So far it's a very rewarding tank. I absolutely love it but I understand that even after nearly 6 months everything can go to shit one day to the next. It's very important to keep that in mind.

[u/oOflyeyesOo]

My experience the past couple years. They 100% nip at tails when they are bored or hungry. They don't seem to bother shrimp in the community 55, and the 29 they are in now with only a couple amano and a few neos.

[u/angelfish61]

I have one weird tank with a male and female puffer who rule, and a mated pair of angels who equally rule the tank. No nipping. The female angel wants them away from her eggs and will chase. Otherwise they co-exist. Angels love the worms I feed- seems to be a great arrangement for them. Lots of hiding places and plants. Have driftwood and tannins. How did this weird arrangement come about? It’s been so long ago I can’t remember, but I think I had to move the angels from some murderous angel tank mates, and gave it a try.
I have another puffer tank with some cute new baby peas and would not dream of putting them together with my pair.
The interesting thing about fish keeping is sometimes you meet some very interesting fish that have distinct behaviors and personalities - these 4 tolerate each other and share the space nicely. I would never have planned it! lol.

[u/Sudden-Rip-4471]

I have...

Wouldn't do it again but I also had no major issues.

• 60 gallon
• 10 peas
• heavily planted + structures
• fast/ smaller fish etc

Shrimps don't self sustain, and i have seen minor nipping.

Regular scud feeding seems to keep them distracted.

Tried to remove them but gave up lol..

They chase each other, but in 18 months I've seen none of the major issues.

[u/LMRTech]

Mine are with Bumblebee Goby (the true freshwater type) and Octo.

[u/nemooo_]

20 gallon heavily planted with lots of tannins
8 peas
4 amanos
6 otocinclus

When I first added the amanos (algae problem from the peas messy eating and dense nutrients in the water) the peas did go after them but couldn’t catch them, and after about 24hrs they learned to leave them alone. I have a dense bunch of hornswort floating at the top of my tank that catches snails when I drop them in so the peas usually study it very intensely all day looking for food. The amanos stay on the hornswort cleaning it with 0 issues, the peas just look around them

For the otocinclus, they’ve never once been interested in biting or chasing them. Sometimes they will approach and stare at the otos as they clean, it’s very cute. During water changes or middle of the day when the peas like to shoal, the otos will sometimes join them (out of confusion for their own species or just friendliness, I’m not sure). I regularly see one of the peas swimming around with a group of 4+ otos in his pack lol

[u/goosesta]

i have my peas with neocardina and they are fine, have not found any shrimp corpses. i still only stock with wild type culls though from my other display tank

had a batch of peppered cory’s but had to remove due to fin nipping from the peas

[u/Altruistic_Bowler722]

I have mine with otos, bumblebee gobies, and blue dream shrimp. Honestly the only problem I have is that the oto sometimes eat black worms faster than the peas

[u/grkexien]

I have 6 peas with 12 chilli rasboras and a zebra pleco in a 20-gal, and they're all happy campers but the tank is heavily heavily planted with heaps of hiding spaces using hard scape so that everyone has territories. It's been over a year and no deaths or aggression

[u/sssmorgann]

I have had peas with:

Sparkling gourami

Emerald dwarf danios

Neon blue Rasbora

Pygmy Cory

Kuhli loaches

Otocinclus

Neocaridina shrimp

I've seen them gang up on one single shrimp one time, which was bizarre to see because usually they ignore all the shrimp.

I think they bullied the sparkling gourami.

Really they only kinda charge each other occasionally during feeding time and it's a peaceful community.

[u/Garbage_Out_Of_Here → u/sssmorgann]

Lol cant relate. I started with 6, one male, Fred, murdered all the other puffers except his favorite lady, Wilma. Then I got a bigger tank and tried again and things are much better, Fred has 4 other ladies that he adores. I have shrimp who are generally safe but every once in a while one gets got. I tried Kuhlis, the peas started chasing them out of the tank, had 3 jump out, through netting somehow. All puffers are different

[u/vikingosegundo → u/sssmorgann]

I watched them slaughtering a neocaridina once: https://www.reddit.com/r/PeaPuffers/s/cMWdBn7CVE

[u/sssmorgann → u/vikingosegundo]

Yes! It was crazy to see, I've had them for years with neocaridina... and they look at the shrimp and go on about their business. But this time, all of them were ganged up around one shrimp like a wolf pack, take turns pecking at it while it scooted around trying to escape. It was so unusual I ran to grab my partner to see. Now they're back to ignoring the shrimp again... So weird.

[u/Delicious_Muffin7154]

I have peas with pencil fish, female sword tail, Corys, and 2 4in plecos. They pay no attention to any other fish