New to puffers..

[Sumi]

OK, (of course hi)

I am new to the puffer world but not new to fish in general. I am curious though at what is the best temperature to keep a puffer tank at. I have heard and read that they need to be 72-80F. I only plan on getting one little dwarf puffer that I absolutely fell in love with a the local pet store. They are kind enough to have him in a tank by himself on hold for me. I have never had one of these fish but I have a cycled 2.5 gallon. I was wondering if that was going to be enough space or if I should invest in a bigger tank at a later point once the little guy is almost full grown. Right now I think my tank is big enough as he is very very tiny. I'm nervous about getting one so little and I'm not quite sure how to feed something that little. I'm going to start with baby brine that I hatch and going to try and get my hands on some blood worms. The store says they feed them frozen blood worms but every time I go I see flakes floating around in all the tanks at feeding time. My baby is a little on the skinny side of things but I can't pick him up til Monday.

Also is it true that you shouldn't catch them with a net but try to scoop them out?

Sorry for talking your ears off,
Sumi

P.S. I have a 55 gallon that is a fancy guppy Paradise, a 10 gal long fry tank, a 2.5 gallon Betta tank, and a 10 gallon mommy tank with 3 pregnant moms to be!

[lisalisa]

Welcome!

Ideally, dwarfs should have 3 gallons per fish, a 2.5 will be fine for some time though. Brine is poor nutritionally, I'd try to vary this more, and include small snails if you can find them. You are correct that you shouldn't lift them out of the water, as they can puff with air. Try this site: http://www.dwarfpuffers.com

[RTR]

I agree that the 2.5 is marginal. Puffers in general are very messy eaters, and that definitely does include the dwarves. The issue with tiny tany tanks is mostly trying to maintain good water quality. The smaller the tank, the smaller the margin of safety.

I feed my dwarves small snails (live), blackworms (live), and frozen bloodworms. Generally I rotate through those 3 foods, but at times I cheat when I'm not thawing bloodworms for any other tank.

[Tihsho]

I use live blackworms, live mosquito larvae, live blood worms (when I can get them), live brine (but only on occasions [ex:when they beg]), ghost shrimp, and mysis shrimp

[Sumi]

I'm worried about actually bringing home my puffers. I have a ten gallon set up its cycled already just need to know how many I can safely put in it. Its very well planted with drift wood and I'm getting a couple more caves for it for hiding holes. The water levels are:

PH 7.0
NO2 less than 0.3 mg/l
CO2 3
NH3 less than 0.25mg/l
GH 11
KH 1
DH 1

[creampuff]

can you bring the ammonia and nitrites level down to zero first? Puffers are generally very very sensitive to water conditions.

[Sumi]

WEE!
I have my little darlings home after dropping the nitrates to 0. I have three of them and they all have staked out thier own little cubbies in my tank. They are sweet little things each with thier own personality.

Piglet - eats a bit on the much side as it is his favorite thing to do. I dont have to really feed him much cause he spends his daylight hours hunting snails.

Echo - named after echo the dolphin fo rthree very bright black spots on top of his head. More timid than the others but the smartest as he already figured out where my blood worm feeder is and sleeps near it nightly.

Lil'Bit - no matter what every thing had to be in little bitty peices before he will eat them. He is also the runt of the group.


I refer to them all as male cause I dont knwo what they are yet.