New to Puffer

[Warhawk]

Hello, I'm not new to aquarium but never thought too much about puffer fish. I have 24 tanks running in my fish room the smallest is 5 gallon and largest 150, I keep lots of fish from American cichilds, livebearers, Killifish,and many others. I have seen puffer fish on Youtube videos and photos online but as I only do freshwater I never game them a lot of thought. Well about 3-4 weeks ago I was in a large family owned pet store about a hour from my house I saw they had Pea Puffers. I watched the little guys for a few mins but I knew I didn't want to buy any new fish with out reading up on them first. Did some reading and it looks like they are also known as Dwarf puffer or Carinotetraodon travancoricus and I read they mainly eat snails in the wild. Well I didn't have any snails in my tanks and with the store over a hour away I thought it was something I wouldn't be getting.

Well fast forward to now. I discovered over the weekend some of the plants I got last month from a local breeder had snails, so now I have snails in 4 of my tanks. So this morning I was researching how to removed my snails with out harming my tanks I came across the Dwarf puffer fish again. Do some more reading and really like these little guys, maybe these snails are a blessing for me, I could allow these little pests to breed and that would be a nice start for some puffer fish. I have read I will need to feed other foods also but that isn't a big deal, I'm setting up lots of live food cultures for fry anyway.

My plan is to call the store to make sure they still have the little guys, they had 5 when I was there but I would be willing to buy up to 10 if they have them . I have three 20 gallon tank I will Quarantine them in then after that I hope to be able to tell the sex and set up a few groups. I don't plan on breeding them but I know fish do what fish do so I will be prepared just in case.

Anyway that is a long way to say hello. I'm going to start reading thru the forum to learn all I can.

[Pufferpunk]

Not sure if you saw these:
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... uffercare/
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... rf-puffer/

[Warhawk]

Not sure if you saw these:
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... uffercare/
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... rf-puffer/

Thanks for the links I have read some of that info but some was new.

I talked to my local fish store and they do have "Pea Puffers" in stock. Going tomorrow after work to pick up a few.

[pufferjw]

Great! Dwarf puffers, South American puffers, and Red-Eye Puffers are the perfect starter puffers, as they are active and not as aggressive as lurkers.

[Warhawk]

Great! Dwarf puffers, South American puffers, and Red-Eye Puffers are the perfect starter puffers, as they are active and not as aggressive as lurkers.

Now you have me looking into South American and Red-Eye puffers. They do look cool but going to stay with the Dwarf puffers for a while maybe in 6-8 months I will look for others.

[pufferjw]

Glad you like Dwarfs, and good luck with them! I've owned Dwarfs and Amazons(SAPs), but when I was looking into getting a third species I decided to get a rare lurking species instead of a Red-Eye. I think that I will do the same thing for my birthday next month and try to get a Duboisi(I tried to get one before, but I couldn't find one so I got a Red Congo).