Pea puffer Question

[Drumm22]

I have kept murder beans in tanks from 5g - 55g and it is genuinely hit or miss on how it goes with groups. All it takes is one of them going psycho and you no longer have a school. My 3 are currently in a heavily planted 29g with cherry shrimp, 2 glass cats, 2 parrot doradids, and some bumblebee cats. I have kept them with rasboras, guppies, danios and other fast movers. Long finned fish don't do well with them long term because they will destroy the fins.
Size wise they rarely exceed 1in. Females will be larger than males but 3/4in is more typical. Males have a brown belly stripe and old man wrinkles near the eyes once mature. Females retain the off yellow belly.
Make sure you dedicate a 5-10g tank just for snail production. Murder beans are known for destroying a snail population in short order even when they aren't hungry. If not caught soon enough the ammonia spike wipes them out.
Plant heavily, and use a large mass of java moss too. They will use it for spawning.

Thank you

 

[Deadeye]

Not saying it couldn't work, but I'm a little skeptical. Dwarf chain loaches are not aggressive, merely slightly boisterous, and only to very placid fish like Corydoras.
My gut feeling is that, being as inquisitive as they are, they're bound to get the puffer's attention at some point by investigating them. Then the puffers would probably attack, and the non-aggressive nature of the chain loaches would likely mean they'd get seriously hurt or even killed.

As for skunk loaches being a bit big, Botia to my understanding do not usually eat small fish, especially not more secretive Botia (like skunk loaches) that, by virtue of their secrecy, are less likely to chase small fish down. That doesn't mean there would be no problems at all with skunk loaches and pea puffers, but size isn't something I'd expect to be a problem.

Going by what Fishguy said, pea puffers may be able to keep pace. But we'd need someone to try the mix to know for sure, though.

Tbh that’s really the risk with dwarf puffers and any fish…snapping and killing the rest. Though loaches have some choppers too - it could probably hurt a puffer too. Tank size also plays a big role - a 5 gallon doesn’t offer much escape space but a 55 will let fish get away from aggression.
It’s less of an eating issue I find with the skunk, just more of overpowering them and causing serious injury that way, or the excessive chasing stressing out the puffer.
Thinking about loaches now actually reminds me of the reason I wouldn’t recommend zebra danios with a dp, such aggressive feeders can easily stress out a dwarf puffer. Not that these mixes don’t work out, just not the safest.