The Puffer Forum

My 10g has finally finished its cycle, and i am ready to go. I know 10g is a little on the small side, but i am prepared! If i can't handle the diligent maintenance on the 10g, I'm prepared to give them my live bearers 20g, and buy another 20g tank. I have 2 hob filters on my 10g and 2 hob filters on my 20, so i am ready to instant cycle another tank if i need to.
My plan is to have 3 dwarf puffers, 1 male and 2 female, and ghost shrimp. (hoping the puffers will eat the ghost shrimp)
I have a few questions though.
I do not plan to put all the puffers in there at once. I don't want to do anything to to put alot of stress on my biological filtration.
Should i introduce the 2 females first, and the male last? Would that help with any potential aggression? Should the 2 females go in at the same time?

Also, i have read that some dwarf puffers don't always eat shrimp. I would like to make live gut loaded shrimp a staple food in their diet(along with bloodworm, and frozen krill). Any tips for training them to hunt shrimp?

Last question. What size QT is appropriate...I'm asking because i am limited on space...and have settled on a 1 gallon QT. Is that good enough? The filter i have on the Main tank for the QT is for up to 5 gallons.

Thanks in advance!

If you did a fishless cycle as per the article in the Library, you're good to go to add the puffers. After you deworm, add the shrimp. Your nitrifying bacteria will be well-established by then. Besides, worm meds kill shrimp.

Adult live ghost shrimp are too big for DPs. They'll slowly pick their appendages off, but they'll leave most of the body to rot. Try breeding some shrimp (cherry or Amano, maybe?) and feeding them the shrimplets. Gut-loaded shrimplets would be perfect, and absolutely irresistable.

I would suggest a 5g quarantine at least. A nice clear plastic bin would work fine.

I don't think it'll be necessary to introduce the females first. As long as there are no other males, your one male will be confident enough that he probably won't feel the need to show off his authority.

Thanks tons for the quick response.

Ok, i will upgrade my QT to a five gallon.

My water parameters are:
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
My nitrates are high, a tad bit more than 25. I plan to do a nice sized water change prior to stocking.
Ph is 7.8
Temp @ 80F

Thx for the info on ghost shrimp and about the meds killing them.

What size tank is good for breeding shrimp? I have a snail factory in my 20g lol, but i think my live bearers would make a meal out of baby shrimp.
Ok, so i might introduce the male first and let him grab the prime territory, lol.

With my cycle i started out with fish, read about fishless cycling and gave the fish back to the LFS. I switched to adding ammonia, then it got complicated....was hard to get the ammonia dosage right, to make it not too high. I then switched to feeding the tank flake food.

LilGreenPuffer wrote:Try breeding some shrimp (cherry or Amano, maybe?)

Amano are a bit more difficult than Cherry to breed. The larvae need saltwater to survive and phytoplankton to eat — not quite as simple as the 'put them in a tank and you'll soon have a million' cherry shrimp.

Thanks, Malabar. I wasn't sure on those.

If you go with cherry shrimp, be warned that they require stable water parameters, so a tank of at least 5g is important. It must be filtered. You won't need a heater; they do better in the low to mid seventies.

And a quick response from me is a given when I have a paper to write and I'm stalling.