The Puffer Forum

I plan to have 3 dwarf puffers and 3 ottos in my 20 gallon tank. Also I will be keeping feeder snails (pond snails). It has a 340 gph filter (Whisper EX70). Is this to many fish, or do I have room for more?

Maybe one more oto, and then I'd call it quits. Besides, not many fish are compatible with DPs.

In a 20G you could have up to 4 DPs. So if you chose to have 3 DPs+ 3 ottos, that will be fine since ottos generate little organic load... Just keep an eye on nitrates if you are insecure.

If you wanna get one more oto, just like LilGreenPuffer said, go for it, I don't see any trouble ahead.

Actually, in a 20g, you could have up to 6. Most of the the experts reccomend 3 as the minimun, not 5. This, of course, is not counting the otos.

OK, thanks!
I think I'll go with 3 dp (hopefully travancorcious) and 4 ottos, the wore the merrier!

Yah, I thought that the Pufferpedia was infallible, but Pufferpunk told me otherwise, so I'm going with her opinion.

I just followed the PufferPedia... =)

Hi there. We are also starting a 20gal. dp tank. The lfs only had 2, but we're going for 3-4 more (hopefully) tomorrow. They're too cute. We were going to "test the waters" with 1 of our 4 otos in there. Two minutes after being "home" one of them was checking out a snail with it's cute little innocent eyes - like "hi friend"... bam - attack! : 0 When I saw one of the dp's eyeing my oto I took him out. I hear that people have luck with keeping them together? I like the otos too much & was worried. If you could have seen the look in it's eyes.... lol! : )

By the way - my 6 yr old thinks it's cool when they hunt the snails. Hopefully normal boy behavior & not indicative of mental instability! : ) My 2 yr old told me it was "ok mommy" - that I could uncover my eyes after the massacre! lol : )

Momof3? Awesome. Have you met Dadof4?

Don't worry about the DPs and otos. They should get along fine.

DP & ottos.... apparently it's debatable. I've heard of some "holey" otos. I just can't handle the pressure! Lost a DP in the Aquaclear power head. Well, need to cover that hole... going to get more hopefully today. So general thoughts are 6dps in a highly decorated / overfiltrated 20 gal?

sounds good to me momof3. and as far as the ottos go, i've never had an issue with my DPs attacking them. when they first were introduced they checked the ottos out for a day or tow and then decided they weren't food, and have left them alone ever since. granted i am missing an otto, bu i can't find a body or anything so i have no idea what happened, becuase i doubt my three DPs could have eaten the whole thing (skeleton and all) in a matter of a day or two.

I've kept dwarf puffers with many species of fish in the past (dwarf corydoras, smaller species of rainbowfish, kuhli loaches, bristlenose plecos, etc) with no issues.

However, the tank was jammed full of live plants, very well stocked with red cherry shrimp and a variety of snail species.. those dwarf puffers were always so busy hunting for "goodies" that they never even looked at their "fish" tankmates or even to me for food, unless it was live blackworms.

I have always gone by the 3-5 gallons per dwarf puffer.. but I look at it as 5 gallons for the first, 3 gallons for each additional (but if you are religious with water changes and don't have any other tankmates, a trio will work in a 10gallon) Otos are pretty small fish, but they are also pretty delicate, so I'd lean towards understocking the tank in your situation though. IMO, 3 otos and 3 dwarf puffers is a good balance, even though it might look kind of empty, both species can be on the "delicate" side.

The otos really do need lots of algae to eat, and dwarf puffers LOVE live plants and all the little "bugs" they can hunt in them, so I would definately recommend live plants for this combo.. if you don't though, use a LOT of fake plants, try to get a breeding colony of red cherry shrimp going (cheap, easy to breed, gives the DP's something to chase around) and keep that water as clean as possible (lots of big water changes).

You should be ok. Id personnally try to plant it up and make it look pretty. The ottocinclius should be ok as they will spend most of the time in the plants. I'd personally go with three puffers, and 4 ottos, they dont really get any bigger than an 1" and love the company of each other. Just what i'd do.