Australian pea puffers - advice, seeking knowledge
Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2021 11:04 am
Hi all, thank you so much for letting me join your forum, I’m hoping I will get the help I need here because pea puffers in Australia are very highly sought after and tf hard to source,they are captive bred so IPs are not considered a common ailment- being hard to source makes them also expensive, and v few people here know about their behaviours, needs etc.
All my reading and research as a vet myself comes from sources overseas where they are much more common, and I have been told by one person that puffers here in Australia are “different”, however they came originally from overseas, they are not native here, so I don’t know about that.....
I would like to know, to start off with:
1. what experienced pea puffer owners here feel is an appropriate sized tank for three puffers, and
2. what ratio of male to female is advised, and
3. must males have a permanent belly stripe to be considered a male, or do the little lines behind the eyes and deep orange belly suffice as meeting criteria for being a male?
4. is it common for males to “bully” one another resulting in the submissive male to stop eating? And when I say bullying, I mean just starting and following the other male around, almost like hunting him and not letting him eat. These are behaviours I have observed. I have also observed the same behaviour in a pair, male dominating female in a 10G tank to the point she stopped eating, lost weight and I had to seperate them and move her to another tank
5. Do they like to live in groups? Or are they, as I have been told here, solitary fish? I read they live in groups in the wild and in so many videos I see on FB YouTube, they seem to coexist quite happily together in quite large groups..... which makes me question how my puffers were originally raised or are they really different to the ones overseas....or I’ve just had v bad luck.
I’m a little frustrated, as you can probably imagine.... I’m in the process of sourcing two more females to “dilute” the dominance/bullying.
Thank you in advance and please be kind, I’m here for help. I didn’t think it would be this hard - and I’m frustrated regarding the little help,I have received from where I purchased them from.
All my reading and research as a vet myself comes from sources overseas where they are much more common, and I have been told by one person that puffers here in Australia are “different”, however they came originally from overseas, they are not native here, so I don’t know about that.....
I would like to know, to start off with:
1. what experienced pea puffer owners here feel is an appropriate sized tank for three puffers, and
2. what ratio of male to female is advised, and
3. must males have a permanent belly stripe to be considered a male, or do the little lines behind the eyes and deep orange belly suffice as meeting criteria for being a male?
4. is it common for males to “bully” one another resulting in the submissive male to stop eating? And when I say bullying, I mean just starting and following the other male around, almost like hunting him and not letting him eat. These are behaviours I have observed. I have also observed the same behaviour in a pair, male dominating female in a 10G tank to the point she stopped eating, lost weight and I had to seperate them and move her to another tank
5. Do they like to live in groups? Or are they, as I have been told here, solitary fish? I read they live in groups in the wild and in so many videos I see on FB YouTube, they seem to coexist quite happily together in quite large groups..... which makes me question how my puffers were originally raised or are they really different to the ones overseas....or I’ve just had v bad luck.
I’m a little frustrated, as you can probably imagine.... I’m in the process of sourcing two more females to “dilute” the dominance/bullying.
Thank you in advance and please be kind, I’m here for help. I didn’t think it would be this hard - and I’m frustrated regarding the little help,I have received from where I purchased them from.