The Puffer Forum

Hello..,

More than a year ago, I came on this forum because my daughter wanted puffers for her new aquarium. I read up a little on them and asked for advice here, but after awhile decided she should try something easier first. Even though it has been over a year, there is still no doubt in her mind that she wants puffers more than anything else. It is also her 12th birthday this weekend.

Today I was in a store I don't often visit and came across some Pea Puffers. They had just come off the plane and were still in their shipping bag. I could hardly believe my ears when the owner told me he was only asking $5 per fish, so I took all five before they had even gone into the tank at the store. (Where I live, Puffers are hard to find and expensive; up to $21 per fish!)

I brought them home and placed them in a 5G Quarantine. They are so tiny; not much bigger than a child's fingernail and quite thin. One of the five appears to have a bent spine but swims normally. They all seemed quite lethargic, but once the acclimation was done, they went about making themselves at home in the clay pot and floating plants I placed in the tank. I put a few pond snails in with them and fed them frozen brine shrimp, which they seemed to take quite readily. I could see them sizing up the snails, circling them and taking turns making little nips. The snails are all still intact, but I have no doubt they won't be for long. I have tons of Malaysian Trumpet Snails which are smaller, but I have heard the puffers can choke on them or that their shells are too hard. Is this true? Can they eat other types of snails, and if so, what size do they have to be?

My daughter's current tank is 10 Gallons. I was going to give her a 20, but now that I've seen the puffers, I wonder if she will even be able to find them in such a large tank. Is the 10 Gallon going to be an OK size? What kind of substrate should I use, is there any sort of preference? Though I prefer darker substrates, I wonder if the puffers might be more easily seen with a lighter sand/gravel. What about decorations? I have read here that they like a planted tank, which suits us fine, and thought about using some wood to break up the lines of sight for their territories as they get older. What other kinds of decorations might they prefer? I have also wondered other things about their diet and care.

I told my daughter it might be best to keep them in species only, which is fine by her since she loves puffers so much. But still I wonder if there are any tankmates that might be suitable. I notice they rest on the bottom, so wondered if bottom or top-dwellers would be best, if we decide to have any other fish at all. It's actually kind of alarming to me that they sit on the bottom at all, but I've seen them in stores doing this before.

I have kept many other types of fish, but Puffers are a whole new world to me!:)

Basically I would like to hear any sort of experience or advice for this type of puffer.

Thank-you
soul-hugger

If the QT tank isn't cycled make sure you do large daily water changes and test the water frequently.

MTS are not suitable for them. Their shells are too hard and you run the risk of them cracking their teeth. This is under mild debate but better safe than sorry! They can eat pond snails and ramshorn snails. Both are pretty common pest snails or can be bought online. You generally want them to be the size of the puffers eye.

The 10gal is too small. Check out the PufferPedia on here. They'll need about 20gal. They're small but are still messy, active, and territorial. There are excellent articles on here that should be able to answer your feeding questions and there may even be some on DPs though I'm not sure. Please read about internal parasites as well as if they're very thin and have a pinched look then they may need to be dewormed.

DPs have been successfully kept with shrimp (certainly isn't always successful, be prepared for them to be eaten), ottos, and kuhli loaches. There are probably some others.

If the 10 is empty, I suggest moving them in there. A 5g won't do for 5 of therm. 5g/single puffer is best. See about sexing them in the article in our Library Males can fight to the death. Also, check ni our Library about emegrcy cycling.

Hello again:)

Thanks for the comments and advice.

I am an experienced fishkeeper and used cycled material in the filter as well as water from my other tanks. I also have the help of my boyfriend who is an admin at Tropical Fish Hobbyist. He has owned puffers before but they were of a different type.

Yes, I think you are right about the 20 Gallon being better in the end, however it is obvious that the puffers are babies right now, so for the Quarantine period, I think they should be OK with a lot of water changes.

I have done some reading both here and at Dwarf Puffers ( some excellent information:), but I always like to ask as well, since research can often not compare to direct advice from those with experience.

For deworming, what kind of medication have you have success with?

Just making a quick reply before I head out the door. I may have other questions later. The Puffers are looking much better today. They have coloured up anad are exploring the tank. After having watched their behaviour a little, I'm sure that even though they are small, they will be seen in a 20G. They are cute and curious little guys... maybe my daughter will never get these fish...

Bye for Now,
soul-hugger

I have two DPs in a 25g, and I see them fine. Once they get to know you (especially if you're the one who feeds them!), they will swim up to the glass to greet you. So the size of tank, as long as it's large enough, doesn't really matter.

They will grow to just under an inch, so they are pretty easy to find.. usually they are stalking you!

I would suggest the larger tank, just to save you effort on water changes if nothing else, but if you are waiting to set up the bigger tank for her birthday, a few days in the 5 gallon won't kill them, especially with cycled media and live plants from other tanks.

As far as substrate, that doesn't matter because these guys don't bury themselves.

MTS snails are not good for most puffers, but my experience is they are okay with dwarf puffers.. mainly because dwarfs don't usually crush snails, they grab the heads and suck them out of the shells. That said, MTS's have trapdoors and can protect themselves.. so I'm not sure if they'd really even qualify as "food".. Personally I'd probably keep them out, as they may eat other snail eggs and prevent them from breeding, but they also have the plus side of stirring the substrate.

For tankmates, obviously first you'd need a bigger tank (I figure 5 gallons for the first dwarf, 3 for each additional.. so for 5 dwarves you'd want 17+ gallons, plus more for tankmates). My first choice is red cherry shrimp, pretty, they eat algae, and give the puffers tons of hunting exercise. Second choice is otos, but as I'm sure you know they need an established tank with plenty of algae, so you'd have to wait several months after the larger tank is setup to introduce them.

I've also kept dwarf corydoras with my dwarf puffers (and red cherry shrimp, it was a "mini fish" tank), but my tank had a very large floorplan and was very heavily planted, with established snail and shrimp populations, so the puffers spent their time hunting shrimp and snails and ignored the cories.

For food, don't be surprised if these little guys much prefer to hunt their own "bugs" out, and turn their noses up at anything you offer them other than live blackworms. They have plenty of attitude!

This will give you an idea of the size of a full-grown dwarf puffer. He's next to the top of a tank thermometer.

Hi All..,

Thanks for the insightful comments and suggestions:)

I found a hood for the 20 Gallon today, so I'm relieved that I'll be able to move the Puffers directly there once the QT period is over. I didn't want to have an open-topped tank for my daughter because there is so much evaporation, and water would need to be added every couple of days. It's also better on the off chance that someone decides to jump. Have any of you found that Puffers are jumpers?

I have noticed the little guys pulling snails out of the shells. I harvested a bunch of both Pond and Ramshorn Snails from my other tanks and those of my friends, and even a few of their eggs. No sooner had I dropped the eggs in, and one of the Puffers grabbed them and was swimming around the tank with them in his mouth. I noticed they will also attack the larger snails as a group, and have found a few empty shells. Today I also added a few Ghost Shrimp, which have so far been untouched. It will be good if they eat them, good if they don't, so it's a win-win:). I have a good-sized colony of Cherry Shrimp in one of my other tanks, so some of these might go in eventually too.

Brent wrote:they (Malaysian Trumpets) may eat other snail eggs and prevent them from breeding

I find this interesting because just today I was saying I think they are eating the eggs of my Shrimp. There were a lot more babies before the population of these snails increased. Although I like them for stirring the substrate, and because they don't eat plants, this tank could do without them.

I don't think I'll bother with other fish in this tank, except for maybe a couple Otos once it is established. The other benefit to this will be that the Puffers will be the main focus, which I don't think will be hard. They are curious, gregarious, intelligent little guys, and I have enjoyed watching them.

I found they do prefer to eat live food, though they did eat frozen brine shrimp and freeze-dried bloodworms. They seem to enjoy hunting, and I'm sure there must be lots of other microfauna they can hunt that we can't see.

Thanks for the picture. This gives me an excellent idea of their eventual size. They are only about 1cm long right now, so I'm sure they have a lot of growing to do. I am happy to see that they are getting bellies on them now, though.

I was wondering if Puffers are tolerant of Pimafix and Melafix. I keep a lot of Loaches, who cannot tolerate Pimafix at all, and can only handle a half dose of Melafix. I have found in the tanks without Shrimp, it is an excellent preventative.

Bye For Now,
soul-hugger

Hows the little fellow with the bent spine doing? When I read that it raised the hair on the back of my neck.

The little one with the bent spine is doing well. He/She has been nicknamed "Twisty." He eats well, and is actually the largest and most colourful of the five. The bent spine doesn't seem to keep him from swimming normally. I was scared at first he might not make it, but he seems to be as active and gregarious as the rest.

I have seen other fish with bent spines before, but never a Puffer. I have heard of many cases where fish with bent spines live normal, healthy lives. Do you think this will cause a problem, or that it indicates disease? If so, what is the best way to treat him? So far, I have been treating him the same as the others, and have assumed this is a deformity as opposed to a disease. So far, he is the only one who has a name. I hope eventually we'll be able to tell them apart and name them all.

I will be keeping an extra close eye on them for the next while to be sure they are healthy and growing normally.

Bye for Now..,
soul-hugger

It's most likely Twisty will live a relatively healthy life - a puffer mostly maneuvers using the two side fins, so the spine is not in constant use when swimming as with 99% of fish. The tail fin is a rudder for puffers most of the time, which should work fine even with a bent spine, and it's agency is as a predator-escape speed burst for the most part in the wild.

I kept a Betta with severe deformities once, when she was not healthy enough to adopt out after an accidental breeding(it involved a divider they could jump over, or so we found out after all the spawning). She lived almost a year, despite having a horribly deformed spine, TINY size(under 1" at time of death, which was sometime between 8 months and 1year after she was born), swim bladder deformities(after 5-6 months of age, she could only swim across the water's surface, on her side), and most likely other organ abnormalities, which ultimately lead to her death. She was still a really cool and very affectionate fish for her short life, begging for attention with the best puffers, and aware of her surroundings in a way I find most Betta to fail at.

So, I conclude, cheers and best wishes to your slightly deformed DP - I have kept a fish with much worse birth defects alive for a good while. Her name, for the record, was 'Gimpy' - and she was a way more interactive fish than 90% of Betta. I have no doubt your DP with difficulties will quickly become a favorite.