The Puffer Forum

Hi, everyone. I am new to puffers and new to this forum and I have some questions about the south american puffers I just got.
- I have two of them in a 28 gallon tank, I will not be adding any other fish to it, is this large enough?
- How much should they eat? (they are about 1 inch in length). I know they like to eat snails, and I will be breeding my own snails for them to eat, but can I feed them bloodworms (frozen) and freeze dried krill until I can get some snails?
- They are doing some swimming up and down the tank glass, I thought they might be stressed but they also spend alot of time wandering calmly about the tank (there are lots of decorations and plants). Just curious if they will calm down a bit and if this is normal (all water paramaters are good).
- The tank they are in was previously used to house young african cichlids and has some coconut shell caves, will the puffers use these caves or are they just wasting space?
I suppose I could probably find most of this info on the internet somewhere, but would appreciate some advice from experience puffer keepers.

Tank size should be fine.
Feed them til their bellies are slightly rounded.
Your SAP's may always pace, some of them just do you can try and minimise this with plenty of plants and decor but they may still do the pacing.

Welcome to the site

Just following on from Hilly really. My SAPs don't show any interest at all in caves. Even when scared (for example when the big bad man has just cut their teeth!) they "hide" by sitting on the sand and fading out their colours. No attempt at all to swim even into the plants, let alone caves.

SAPs are riverine puffers. Unlike almost all the other species kept in freshwater/brackish water tanks they do not guard their eggs and do not hold territories. Instead, they swim between rivers and lakes their entire lives. They like swimming space, and they like floating plants best of all (in my opinion) as far as decoration goes. They certainly like company, so I'm glad you bought two instead of one.

Cheers, Neale