The Puffer Forum

I just got a new 5.5 gallon and was wondering if i could put in 3 dwarf puffers. i dont know what i want to put in but just thinking of ideas. I know how to care for them and the tank will be densley planted and cycles when they are put in.

I really think that you would be severely straining that tank and would probably lose at least 1 puffer to poor water quality. If you can hook it up to another system and combine the sizes than maybe (like a refugium or sump setup for marine tanks) you colud pull it off, but why not just buy a ten gallon tank and transfer the filtration etc over. tens are only ten bucks or so and while not really fully able to hold 3 dwarfs 2 would be ok for quite a while.

good luck

thanks. the filter is a aqyuaclear 20 so the water quaility should be okay. I also test my water evry week. Will it work if i can keep the water stable?

No. A 5.5 gallon tank could house ONE dwarf puffer, no more.

ok calm down. i wont get a puffer.

A betta would probably be happy in there. Really, a 10g is the smallest tank for fish.

yah, i may go with a male betta and maybe put my adf in there with him. Thanks guys. I will eventually pick up a 10 gallon for these guys.

i think it would be cool to have a dp in a 5.5 gallon tank. JRead over at the Dwarf Puffer forum kept some in a 5 so you might want to check that out. Anyway hope you get into puffers their great.

chriscenter1 wrote:i think it would be cool to have a dp in a 5.5 gallon tank. JRead over at the Dwarf Puffer forum kept some in a 5 so you might want to check that out. Anyway hope you get into puffers their great.

Lots of people keep lots of fish in plenty of tanks that are way too small for the fish's health. The fish survive. Many POWs spent many months confined in very small cages. They also survived. Neither of these examples is what I would consider to be acceptable practice though.

And he had issues with the fish as well. I hope that he no longer suggests more than one in a 5.

RTR wrote:And he had issues with the fish as well. I hope that he no longer suggests more than one in a 5.

I don't remember ever having issues with 2 DP's in the 5, but I agree that a 10-gallon is small enough. Except for situations where space is severely limited and a small tank is the only choice, there is just no reason to get anything smaller than a 10-gallon these days. Half the time a 10-gallon is actually cheaper anyway.

mmm must get the old post warning to work.

True, but in the case the response is valid since RTR's comment was about jread's experiences with keeping two DPs in a 5G tank. Now if we could just get jread to log in and comment more often...

this thread ended a long time ago.

ybenormal wrote:True, but in the case the response is valid since RTR's comment was about jread's experiences with keeping two DPs in a 5G tank. Now if we could just get jread to log in and comment more often...

Sorry, I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to respond as it referred to a specific setup that I had in the past.

I "lurk" on this site a lot but I don't respond often enough. To be honest, though, I really only know about dwarf puffers so there's no way I could possibly provide better info for the others than PP, RTR and the other experts on here. Most of my time on here is spent learning new things about other puffer species as I'd like to branch out and keep some of the other types one of these days

Either way, I'll try to get better at posting in the future.