New Dwarf Puffer

[nanogal]

Hello folks,
I'm a newbie here because I just got my first puffer a few days ago, and her name is Isabella. I'm not new to fishkeeping, but circumstances, i.e. my still being a starving student, have prompted me to set up a 5 gal after several years of not keeping tanks. Then... at a local auction, I got a 10 gal (which is BAD ). Anyways, both are planted tanks, but the 10 gal has just started cycling, and the 5 gal will be the topic of discussion if you folks will oblige.

I have white clouds and glowlights in there with my dwarf right now. (and shrimp and an oto) Before I continue, let me assure you the tank is fully cycled and heavily planted. OK. After tons of research, I decided to try this, knowing full well it may fail, but I wanted to bounce it off of some puffer folks, and also, share my experiences along the way. The gravel is full of MTS, there are cherry shrimps and a ghost shrimp in there and 6 species of plants, all of which Isabella is welcome to snack on/explore. I have a snail farm going with pond snails and they've laid a ton of eggs, so I hope to always be able to have some loose in her tank for her to find. There are also nematodes in there that I've seen her eat. My hope is that she will be a happy camper in there and that her curiosity and appetite will be satisfied enough that she will not attack my other fish.
I realise that she is still young, and that many people have had success keeping them with other fish as juvies only to find torn fins one day, but I'm really hoping that certain factors will encourage the indifference she has shown the other fish so far:
1)she is female. I didn't buy the tiniest cutest one, I bought the big one I was quite sure was a gal, and looked free of ips
2)lots of food in there for her to hunt, plus daily feeding of frozen bloodworms
3)Very heavily planted tank
4)Her tank mates are small and faster than her.

It's only been three days, but so far so good! And since I put my old disgusting filter media in the new 10 gal tank, it should be cycled in no time if things go terribly wrong and I need to rehome the other fish. I must say, she is doing great. She's eating like a piglet, which I was thrilled about because I've read a LOT of posts about people having problems with their dps' appetites on dwarfpuffers.com, and she spends all her time searching the plants for nematodes and the gravel for snails, though she has only been able to find one MTS to my knowledge. (One big empty shell) She maimed a pond snail, which is still trying to get around despite it having about half its body missing (I wish she'd just finish it off!) and has shown absolutely no interest in the other fish or the shrimp so far.

Has anybody here ever had any luck with keeping a single dp with other fish?

[crazedpuffer]

Welcome to the forum!
Quite a few people have had limited success keeping dps with other fish, especially since lately most dps seem to be tank bred.

[Goonerman1]

I have 4 DP's in a very heavily planted tank. When I first put them in there were 2 Bronze Cories and 1 neon tetra living in there.....all seemed fine for a week or so but then the DP's started nipping the Cories fins. The cories weren't small they were fully grown so no pushovers. Over the course of a week their fins were badly shredded until I had to take them out and re house them in my worktank, I took the neon out too just to be safe. The DP's now have the tank to themselves which I think is the way it should be. It is said that the only tankmates that DP's will live with are Otos and Shrimp. I put 5 Orange Shrimp in there yesterday but have only seen 3 today so far, so who knows, maybe even the shrimp have become expensive fishfood??? So, I would say to you that your DP's may well seem to be living peacefully with their tankmates at the moment but sooner of later I reckon it will all kick off. As with most Fish there are only guidlines that we try to follow but there are always the exception to the rule, which is to say that your DP's and their tankmates could well live happily ever after. So all I can say is............BE PREPARED!!!

[nanogal]

Crazedpuffer, very interesting point.
Goonerman, do you think that when they are kept in groups like that, they become more aggressive? It seems that when there are more than one, they become territorial and competitive for a spot on the pecking order?
Isabella doesn't have that competition so unless she decides one day that the whole tank is hers and nothing else is allowed to live in it, I may not en counter problems associated with that stimulus.

[Nick]

The real question to me is how many white clouds and glowlights. The DP needs minimum 3 gallons himself to not stunt, the DP I raised alone in a 2.5 was always smaller than his tankmate DPs after I got a larger tank, and I'm pretty sure it was the size of his tank. If you have more than one of each white cloud and glowlight, aggression isn't the issue as much as overstocking is with only a 5 gallon tank.

[nanogal]

Definitely more than one of each. There is a small school of each, 7 white clouds and 5 glowlights.
The tank is a hex, and the white clouds stick to the top with the glowlights claiming the bottom half. Although you may find this overstocked, I really don't see it as such myself, only because they're small peaceful schooling fish that loosely stick together and don't take up all the free swimming space. They are all in good health, vibrantly colored and there is no squabbling between the two species, and so far, none with the dp either.
What I fail to understand is how having other fish will stunt the puffer. She still roams the entire 5 gals as if it were all her own, and I do not see how this is equatable with putting her in a tank less than 3 gals by herself?
As for bioload, it's an Eclipse tank with a mechanical filter to grow bacteria as well as a biowheel and a ton of live plants, but I think you're more concerned about space than bioload in my case. Isabella literally ignores the other fish and goes about her business like they're not there. She does not have a "territory" of one or two gals that she sticks to, so I don't think she'll be stunted, but that's a good concern to keep in mind.
Btw, I would not consider having less than five of either the tetras or the white clouds. The only reason I ended up with 7 WC's is that the LFS guy threw them in with my order probably thinking he was doing me a favor. I had intended on five of each, as they definitely behave differently when they're in groups. Much more secure, colorful etc.

[Nick]

The tank is considered overstock because of bioload, not swimming room. Unless a fishkeeper is so foolish as to put a fish longer than the tank is wide(oh, and some definately are), swimming room isn't a big factor in stunting, though certainly keeping fast moving fish in a tank so small they can't get exercise is also poor practice. Waste buildup from all the fish, especially dissolve solids which no FW filter can remove, only water changes, are the main factors. Too much waste, too little water. I know that tank you are talking about, my ex and I kept one dwarf puffer in there solo, though he now lives with my dwarf puffers in a 15 gallon. JUST the glowlights are filling that tank. In fact, the white clouds and glowlights together would be nearly overstocked in the ten gallon, where I suggest you move both promptly. The degree of bacteria in the filter doesn't matter past keeping it cycled in a FW tank, it doesn't remove stunting factors, only water change does. Additonally, the filter in that tank is rather low flow due to the small hex shape making high waterflow create a vortex problem, making it a particularly bad tank to overstock. With a tank that small and that bioload, even 75% every other day water changes would probably not dilute accumulating dissolved waste fast enough.

[nanogal]

Hmmm,
I do agree that the filter is low flow, and it requires frequent maintenance because the smallest amount of debris and it slows down. So I keep a close eye on it because I can now tell if there is something obstructing the impeller by the circulation.

As for dissolved organics and pollutants and whatnot, wouldn't my fast-growing plants help with that? Also, I do daily 15% WCs so as not to disrupt things too much with large WCs.

[nanogal]

One more thing, I checked out the thread about stunting in General Discussion about the ID Shark and I think the question still remains: what are signs of stunting? Would the fact that my cherry shrimp are alive and well be an indication of the water quality? No breeding on their part yet, but they were tiny little juvies when I got them about two weeks ago. They are coloring up nicely now though.

[Agnate]

I can't answer your question, but are those cherry shrimp the ones from WTS on Ovas? I got some around 2 weeks ago as well, and I noticed two of my females have a bunch of eggs that they're clutching. I'm hoping I get babies! ^_^

[crazedpuffer]

One more thing, I checked out the thread about stunting in General Discussion about the ID Shark and I think the question still remains: what are signs of stunting? Would the fact that my cherry shrimp are alive and well be an indication of the water quality? No breeding on their part yet, but they were tiny little juvies when I got them about two weeks ago. They are coloring up nicely now though.

They can vary a bit. Generally the fish will be much smaller than others of the same species (like Nick's puffer) If the stunting is severe it will look like the fishes head and eyes are to big for its body.

[Nick]

15% is simply not enough with that bioload by a longshot. With 15% daily changes, waste will keep accumulating until the daily waste output is equal to 15% of the total waste in the tank, meaning you will have too much waste baseline. Think about it, you have just short of 25" of fish(counting the DP as 3" as is generally given to be the minimum) in a 5 gallon tank. Thats 5 times too much, using the loosest, most generous stocking rule for everything but the DP. So if you were properly stocked and 50% weekly would be enough to keep the DP healthy, you now need to do 50% five times as often to keep the wastes near the same level, 40-50% daily would be a better goal for keeping dissolved wastes reasonable. Even if you do that, I would still say the conditions are too crowded. I consider my 15 gallon DP tank with 6 bb gobies and 4 DPs pretty overstocked and do 80% water changes about every 5 days. I don't think large volume changes shock fish as long as they happen nearly weekly, I've never lost a fish from parameter difference shock, and that includes when I was maintaining my now ex gf's tanks and doing 75% water changes weekly on a 55 gallon, a 37 gallon, a ten gallon, a 5.5 and a 5 gallon(same one you have), so don't be afraid to change half the water daily.

[Agnate]

So, from this, the loosest rule of thumb is 1" of fish per 1 gallon of water? Are there any exemptions from this rule (in that you can have more inches of fish per gallon of water)? I'm just curious, as I never really knew how to estimate overstocking, heh. I was trying to decide if I could safely add more tetras/cories to my 20 gallon with my Betta in it, but I'm thinking that I might be at my maximum (or close enough to it), hehe.

[Nick]

The only exception I can think of is overcrowding cichlid tanks of similar sized aggressive fish to break down excessive aggression, but those are big, meaty fish, and even with allowing for overcrowding, the inch of fish rule is still quite tight. I suppose with fish well under 1" adult size the rule would break down in the opposite direction, as fish mass decreases greatly with thin bodied fish under 1".

[nanogal]

And aside from the dp, I have thin-bodied small fish. I'm not trying to argue, just discuss. So how are meaty cichlids ok to overstock, but not white clouds and small tetras? I also think you're neglecting the plants in there. I have hygro polysperma and duckweed to absorb nitrogen,(etc) both of which I constantly thin out, and I have a med-fast growing A. crispus and creeping Jenny as well as a Java fern that is growing a heck of a lot faster than I expected. I think my dwarf hairgrass may not make it though...
Anyways, these live plants absorb a ton of pollutants all on their own to supplement my water changes. Isn't that half the benefit of live plants?