New DP's

[lferg]

Hey guys,
I am new to the board and BRAND new to puffers. I went to that "Smart Pet" store chain today to find that they had two DP's for sale. They were on Clearance for $2.49ea. and they were in a nasty tank. It had crap floating every where in it. Anyway I brought my new puffers home and they have there own tank pretty much. They are both females and one is about 1/4" and the other is about 1/2". They seem to be adjusting well they are super cute and are swimming all over the tank in exploration. They are living with a 2" Pleco, Male betta (who is coming out of that tank in the morning), one pea sized apple snail and two large marble sized mystery snails. I hope they can eat all three snails but I don't know their food size limit. For food I have frozen blood worms, frozen mosquito larva, frozen Jack Watley Discus food (packed with lots of meaty items), and freeze dried blood worms. My only option for live food around here is live earth worms from a bait shop but I don't know if that OK to feed them. For now I have a cheap whisper 10-20 HOB filter. Water is about 70-72 deg. What do I need to know and am I on the right track?

[yunachin]

Welcome to the forum!
Firstly you are going to have to raise the temp in the tank for your little ones. 78-80 degrees is the ideal.
Also, dwarf puffers can be very aggressive and you will want to keep them species only for the best interest of your other fish. You might also encounter some fighting between the two, so a heavily planted tank will block lines of sight and ease up on the territory differences.
One last thing....be prepared to have wonderful, inquisitive new puffers. They are little dolls.

Oh and the food, snails are great for them, as are the mosquito larva and blood worms. I am not sure about the discus food though. You want to go for smaller snails right now, about half their size is what I use. There are great articles about feeding your puffs in the library here and about raising your own snails if you want.

[Pufferpunk]

[pufferfreak]

good luck with your dwarf puffers!!

[crazedpuffer]

Welcome!
It's safe to assume yout tank is cycled right? Your doing fine so far, bloodworms and snails are a good enoug diet, I doubt they will take the prepared foods.
Also what kind of pleco is that? Most grow to be huge!

[StormySkiez]

Welcome to The Puffer Forum!

Sounds like you are off to a good start and a lot has been covered except...what size tank do you have the new dp's in?

[lferg]

HEy guys. The tank is cycled and it's a 10g. It was my QT tank until I recused these guys (girls really) and fell in love with them. I gave them some frozen blood worms last night but they were not interested. Guess it takes a few days for them to eat? Anyway here are some pics. Oh and Pleco is a Gibby.. HE was another rescue that was in really bad shape when I got him.

[Jase]

pretty cool

[StormySkiez]

The tank and dp's look good. From what I have read the cute little gibby will need a min tank size of about 75g. Am I right? If so, you will need to find diferent accomdations for him.

I would not worry about the dp's not eating yet. Give them some time to settle. Are your tank water parameters good?

[lferg]

Tanks parameters are all good, no worries there. I do, however, have a crap load of MTS in there which I just read were dangerous for these guys. I didn't worry about them as food before because they are always under the sand.... SHould I remove them? I think I will go get some worms from my local bait store today.

[StormySkiez]

I'm sorry, what is MTS?

[lferg]

Malaysian trumpet snails

[StormySkiez]

Ah, MTS...What I have read is the puffers may crack their teeth trying to eat them. So yes, I would take them out.

[crazedpuffer]

Cute puffers!
MTS are fine, dps dont break through the shell on them they slurp them out instead.

[StormySkiez]

Wow! News to me .