I've never hosted a puffer in my personal tank. But I've always loved their personality when I take care of them in stores. So we decided to take this guy home.
The saddle back puffer, also known by many other names including valentine puffer, is one of the smallest, most commonly available puffer in the aquarium hobby trade.
No puffers are reef safe. However, with caution and good diet, they can co-exist with many other peaceful tank mates, including invertebrates.
I am taking a slight risk placing it in a tank with a little bit of coral, couple emerald crabs, few hermit crabs, snails, as well as a couple urchins. But my goal is to keep it well fed so that there will never be a need for him/her to attack its tank mates.
I now have a six lined wrasse, an electric blue damsel, an Ocellaris clown, and an African flame back angel housed with this puffer. The flamed angel is the king of this tank with the most aggressive demeanor. But the angel just checked out the puffer and left it along.
One note I must stress, if you have never kept a puffer- be sure to provide shellfish or hard shelled crustaceans in its diet frequently. It is necessary for the puffer to chew on hard object to grind down its ever growing teeth, which are fused into a beak-like structure. Without this care, the puffer's teeth will overgrow and eventually starve to death.
Additionally, they can be a bit of a messy eater; so be sure to have good filtration system with a strong skimmer.
A small saddle back puffer like this doesn't exceed 4", and is also a slow swimmer that doesn't require a lot of room. So it's OK to host it in a smaller tank. But if you are looking to get any puffers not in the cantigaster family, most of them can grow up to 1' or larger, be sure to prepare tanks no smaller than 120 Gallon.
