The Puffer Forum

On a trip to my local Petsmart I noticed some wonderfully healthy active and very tiny dwarf puffers! I was so excited to see them, you have no idea. So I have some questions before I bring the little guys home!

First. What on earth do I feed them? My GSP gets a mix of live crab, ghost shrimp, scallops, and snails, but all of these are way to big for the little dwarf puffers. Do I just cut up tiny pieces of whatever I'm giving my GSP and offer it to the dwarf puffers? And I can't imagine being able to find snails small enough for them to crunch down on. Would smashing them up be okay?

That's all I can think of at the moment, I plan on getting two of the little buggers <3 I'm so excited. And they're only $2.50

:edit:

More questions, woo.
I'm planning on housing them in a divided 12gallon tank with a male betta (who will be kept on one side of the divider, and of course, the puffers on the other). Would two of them be okay together? Should I stick with one for now?
They'll eventually be moved to a 10gallon tank (in a month or two) once I get a 20long set up and move my community tank to that.
Any suggestions?

They eat frozen bloodworms and pest snails.
That 12 gallon should work I'd go for it!
Good luck!

Thank you for being smart and deciding to divide the tank before you even get them. DP's would NOT work with a betta, and I'm glad you recognized that.

Dwarf puffers are soo cute! Post some pics when you get them!

So two would be okay together? It'll be very heavily planted, so I don't think there'd be a problem, but I thought I'd ask first.

(half an hour till I go pick them up!)

You could get 3 but 2 would be easier especially with a betta.

Yay! Got two lovely dwarf puffers today



^That's the smaller of the two <3


^And that's the larger one.

I keep freaking out because I'll look in there and have to search forever to find them. They're so tiny and adorable T_T I keep thinking I've lost them somehow.

Your tank looks a little dirty... did you just do a WC or something?

The sand got all stirred up when I added more plants a little earlier and hasn't settled down yet.

Okay, just was worried for a second. They look pretty good! Can you add more pix of the settled tank? Congrats!

Awesomely cute little guys! Congrats!

Cute puffers!
You'll probablly need way more plants to help make them feel more secure. And soon enough they won't feel so lost in the tank anymore when they start swimming up to you whenever you go near the tank.
Congrats!

I plan on moving them to a planted 10gallon in the near future, I just have to get it set up and move around some other tanks and such.

The bigger guy is amazing. He loves me. Every time I walk into the room he rushes to the front of the tank to say hi. I think Petsmart was feeding them flakes, they look kind of skinny. They got nice big bellies yesterday when I gave them bloodworms, I'm so happy they're eating great. I'll be watching them closely for the next few days to make sure they don't have worms. Also, where can I buy some vitamin supplement to soak their food in?

The smaller one is a bit shy, and like my GSP, is lazy in the morning. (They just lay there for a while after I turn the light on, before finally deciding to get up and swim around.)

Finally picked names for them. Stalin for the big guy and MusMus (short for Mussolini) for the little guy(girl? I don't know yet, he/she likes to hide). lol.

It looks like the one in the 2nd pic should be a girl, and the last one a boy. Could be wrong, but thats what it looks like to me =]

Are DP's one of the only puffers you can easily tell the gender visually?

Yep, I can't think of any others off the top of my head.