New Blood

[nazgul]

Hi guys,
I'm a new forum member and I'm writting from Greece.
I own a community tank and I recently received a 22lt tank as a gift. After a lot of studying about what to have in this small tank, I decided to have a dwarf puffer (Carinotetraodon travancoricus) that I always liked so much. And now comes more confusion and more questions, of course!!!

As I already said, it's a 22lt aquarium, lets say 18-19lt net (about 5 gallons), if we consider gravel,rocks, plants etc. Still empty, need to choose the rocks I wanna put there and it's gonna be heavily planted with easy plants. I'll start cycling with ammonia soon, so it's gonna take about 1.5 - 2 months to be totally ready...till then, I've got so many questions for the most experienced with puffers...

1. Should I have 1 or 2 dwarf puffers? It's a small tank, maybe 1 would be the best for these gallons, but is there any possibitily for the fish to get bored or not to be happy on it's own? It's not a betta to be happiest fish ever to be on it's own....
2. If I put 2, considering that I could not know if it's male or female, as it's gonna be young enough to show the genre, isn't it dangerous if there will be 2 males or whatever?
3. A future problem will be the cleaning of the tank. I definately can't have apple snails for the algae and the remains of food on the gravel. Oto's would be the best, but, how many can I have in a 5 gallon tank? Can't have just one, they need to be more to be happy. Putting shrims, too, is just gambling. They can be easily become a good meal, even if I put them first at the tank.
4. 1 dwarf puffer and maybe 2 oto's, wouldn't be too much for a small tank?

I would really like to have your suggestions and opinions,

Thank you for your time

[bertie 83]

You will be fully stocked with just one dp, nothing else. You could try a shrimp but it may well become a meal.. One dp on it's own will be fine as long as there is plenty to look at

[scpion]

+1^ and Otto isn't safe from dp either.

[JRC3]

I definately can't have apple snails for the algae and the remains of food on the gravel.

I've had a mystery snail in my DP tank for several months now. He has learned to only come out at night. This is in a 29g tank, but if I was you I would try it in a 5g. Or if you can get a nerite snail (Neritina natalensis) that might be even better as they are excellent little cleaning machines. And prettier too. Google "Images" them to see the different stripe and color variations.

http://www.petfish.net/articles/Inverte ... Nerite.php

[nazgul]

I've got an Apple Snail in my community tank, but I can't say it's hidding! It's always everywhere and moving very fast, too. I would really like to have one of these in the small tank, but don't think it's gonna survive. Just very conserned about cleaning, because puffers are a bit messy and the tank is very small. Don't want to have problems with ammonia, nitrates etc. Don't know if just with water changes I will be ok....

[RTR]

The Apple snail would increase the bioload beyond the tank's capacity, even if the DP did not harass it or kill it.