Tiny tank for tiny Mowgli

[drankdripline]

Mowgli is my pea puffer. He is about one year old, and though he is small he has a BIG personality. I've been keeping pea puffers for quite a while now but Mowgli is different... because with Mowgli I broke the rules. Mowgli is in a half-gallon tank, which sits on a half-gallon sump-style overflow filter. You would think a half gallon is too small, and normally you'd be right. In this case, however, I scaped Mowgli's tank meticulously to ensure that his little tank would seem huge to him. It worked. By providing Mowgli with thick carpeting, driftwood, dragon stone, and stem plants, Mowgli has a lot to look at. Further, I used these decorations to divide Mowgli's tank into eight (yes eight) distinct sections. Again, the plan worked. Mowgli cannot see one section from the other, and each section provides different places for him to hide, explore, and swim like the lil helicopter he is.

Mowgli is the happiest pea puffer I've kept. He never surfs the glass and is always exploring. He does not attack the cherry shrimp (though it would be fine by me if he did). He has a specific cave that he likes to sleep in. It is his home and he feels safe in there. He will come out whenever I show him I have food though. Two times a day, though mostly at random to keep him guessing, newly hatched brine shrimp suddenly appear all around him. From that point on, the hunt is on. The brine shrimp tend to survive long enough that Mowgli will hunt them all day long until I return to give him another big wave of food.

I am not saying that half a gallon is the best thing for the pea puffer, rather I hope people can appreciate the fact that scaping your tank to cut out lines of sight can make a huge difference in your puffer's life. Even in a lil tank

[Pufferpunk]

I would love to see your tank

[drankdripline]

I would love to see your tank

Sure thing, I will upload the pictures here, let me know what you think! (had to lower quality of picture to meet size restraints but if you'd like a better picture just let me know and I can email it! Also, this is just post trimming and algae killing (just installed uv into sump) so please excuse the algae!

puf 3.jpg

puf 4.jpg

[spanishmack]

Is that really only 0.5 gallons? Looking at Mowgli for scale, it seems larger. I ask because I have a single puffer, Pea-nelope, in a 2.6 gallon.

[drankdripline]

Is that really only 0.5 gallons? Looking at Mowgli for scale, it seems larger. I ask because I have a single puffer, Pea-nelope, in a 2.6 gallon.

Yessir. In total there is about one gallon worth of water (maybe less) but half of that goes into the built-in-sump. That was my goal though, to make it look bigger than it is. It was a tough project but really fun! As I mentioned above the trick was really scaping correctly. The pea-puffers are all about line of sight, especially since they swim like helicopters. Mowgli has yet to start showing signs of stress and she still loves chasing her brine-shrimp. If she ever shows real signs of needing a new tank I will of course upgrade her but for now she has her favorite cave in the dragon stone, and she loves exploring.