New to DPs!! ^^ Would love advice~

[Iri4810]

Hello guys! A few weeks ago, i saw some pea puffers at a local petstore; i thought they were so adorable, but i didn't want to buy them and take them home just to kill them, because of my lack of knowledge and so forth. SO I figured, i'd just wait a bit; the pet store is bound to get more…right? RIGHT?

WRONG.

Its been nearly 7 weeks now, and I've been to 4 pet stores already; I live in Hawaii, so we don't have many of them. While i'm waiting (impatiently) for my dwarf puffers to arrive, I've been stocking up on my supplies, and cycling my tank. So heres what i have so far….

A 10 gal tank, fully cycled, heavily planted, cured driftwood for them to hide under, a bubbler, and a AquaClear Power Filter - 110 V that i bought on amazon. I dosed the tank with the correct amounts of Seachem Prime, with a hint of Seachem Excel for the plants. I have a C02 diffuser coming in soon as well. For the substrate, i put in Fluval Stratum substrate, and covered it with a layer of gravel. Lighting is pretty bright, but i plan to dim it when i get my puffers as i heard they don't like too much light??

I also have a bucket full of bladder and ramshorn snails, they're all in there breeding and making more babies, for food, as well as frozen bloodworms. I was looking, (and still am) for live blood/black worms, but as I'm in hawaii, they've proven to be rather exclusive to obtain, so that may be out of the question until i can afford to buy online…

ANYWAY
Does my setup sound okay to suit 1-2 pea puffers? Will the fluvial stratum substrate be okay? The tank is clear now, though it was slightly murky till the dust settled…All my PH/Nitrate/ammonia levels are good to go, but is it okay if the water is a bit hard? I do have some catappa leaves i bought as well, if the dwarf puffers like the stuff; i know my betta does….

Im not sure of what else to do while i wait, so any suggestions/tips would be great ^^

thank you for reading as well!!

[Pufferpunk]

Sounds great, how about a pic of the tank?

[Iri4810]

Sure!! I'll see if i can have one in the next post, give me a second ^^

[Iri4810]

So, slight problem in this picture; i am currently using a cheap filter due to the fact that my aqua clear filter shut down for some reason. I cannot get it to start again. It is fairly old, 2-3 years, but i haven't had problems with it before, so i'll be trying to fix it. Meanwhile, i had a extra $10 filter that i put in there for now, cheap because i plan to buy another aqua clear filter if i can't fix my old one.

Other than that, I'm just waiting on my C02 diffuser to arrive. The tank is cycled and ready to go, i have a solitary beta in there just for now. He has his own nice planted tank, but i'd like my water to be "lived in" before i put in my puffers, just incase….

[Iri4810]

CELEBRATION!!!!
I just went to a fish specialist store today, hoping to just end up with some plants….and i almost screeched. They had just received a shipment of just 8. EIGHT pea puffers, and i was the luckiest person in that store today; i reserved four. I cannot tell you how excited i am for my new babuns!! I'll be taking them home on Saturday; i can't wait!!!

[Iri4810]

By the way, incase you guys were wondering from my last post (stating that i reserved 4 puffers), no, i will not be stuffing them all into my 10gal tank. I do have another empty tank that's been set up for a while with other fish (i plan to remove those fish, a friend wants them), and into that tank two puffers will go. Does two pea puffers per ten gal sound okay?

[TheStig]

*thumbs up*

Nice lookin' tank you got there!

Excited for you to get your DPs. They will love it.

Thanks for sharing. Oh, and welcome!

[Iri4810]

Thank you very much @TheStig!! ^^ I can't tell you how excited i am! Im going to spoil them so much, i even have blackworms coming in soon (even though it was like….$40 for shipping @___@) but good glory i am excited. ^^ thank you for the welcome as well!! ^^

[PeaPuffer]

Looks like a beautiful set-up! I think we're at the same point in our DP journeys. I, too, first saw DPs in a LFS - I fell for their adorable faces and intelligent eyes. I've been prepping a tank also, which I will be posting in another thread for feedback.

In my case I'm planning at this point to seed the tank with MTS since they populate so quickly and the babies can be slurped up by the DPs.

I look forward to following your tank's progress. Please keep us posted and use lots of pics!

[Iri4810]

Hey guys! I know its been a while since I've posted on here, but as you might have seen me lurking in the brackish water areas, I've been attempting to get a(yet another tank omg) brackish tank ready for a figure eight puffer

However, i thought i'd post a picture of my piggy pea. I hate to have favorites, but she's definitely my favorite (sorry to all the others)
She eats a lot, as you can see in the picture, and is rather large. For some reason (i thought it would only be the bigger puffers that enjoyed this), she enjoys rubbing. Stick your finger in the tank a little, and she'll swim under it, and look at you till you pet her. Strange no?

She has a truly awesome personality though!

[Pufferpunk]

Healthy, happy, fish!

[Welch4]

That's awesome! My only fish that now that will let me pet them are my mollies at work, they go nuts for it. Great looking dp you have there.

[TheStig]

What a cutie! Haha! Piggy Pea! Ung, I love DPs.