The Puffer Forum

Hi,

I started posting in the Meet and Greet section but I thought it best to continue the discussion in a more appropriate section.
To recap, we're in the final stages of setting up a dwarf puffer species tank. The tank is a 120 litre tank and is currently moderately to heavily planted. A few weeks ago it was a jungle but some of it has been trimmed back now since the tank is being used to temporarily house two angelfish. We were thinking of 5 or 6 dwarf puffers together with a group of otos in there (obviously once the angels have been removed). Does this sound ok?

My main questions centre around snails. I have been given the link to the breeding snails article - how small a tank can I get away with for doing this? Will a large ice-cream tub do the job? The article on here mentions a filter but I think I read a different article somewhere (by RTR maybe) that, if I recall correctly, didn't use a filter but relied on large, regular water changes. Also, what type of snails ideally should I be looking for? The tank we have set up for the DPs currently has a crazy pond snail infestation, which I'm hoping the DPs will take care of once we get them. As I understand it, snails aren't essential for DPs in terms of health but are good for the little guys to hunt. If its all just about the hunting then will baby red cherry shrimp do instead since we are likely to become overwhelmed with them soon?
Other foods - we can occasionally get our hands on live foods locally but we have a large variety of frozen stuff at hand.

I've spent hours researching these guys and I hope I haven't got any of the info wrong, but please correct anything that I've got wrong.

Clare

They do NEED snails to offset the nonstop growing of their teeth, as the snail's shell effectively grinds their teeth. The snail's should be the size of their eye. As for breeding them a filter just makes your job easier, you can do large PWC's. They only need the snails once a week, and a variety of food is preferred.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26367&p=282992&hilit=dwarf#p282992

I feed mine 100% snails (because he is such a picky bugger) but it is not necessary.

Yea, once they're spoiled it's a rap.

I.Puff.Too wrote:They do NEED snails to offset the nonstop growing of their teeth, as the snail's shell effectively grinds their teeth.

I thought that dwarfs were an exception to this, as stated in the link that J-P provided. Would anyone be able to clarify this?
Regarding breeding the snails - I could then just take some of the pond snails from the tank and throw them into a make-shift tank, feed them and let them get on with it? Do pond snails need a heater/light or will a box on my windowsill suffice?

Sorry about all the questions. Fish, I'm fine with. Snails, I'm entering uncharted territory and haven't got a clue!

you don't need a heater but warmer water will speed up the metabolism and make them breed more quickly.

Since they are for food, you only really need the ambient room lights, on a window sill you'll get algae which may or may not be good

I would say snails are not necessary, but are beneficial for a DP.

I thought that dwarfs were an exception to this, as stated in the link that J-P provided. Would anyone be able to clarify this?

You are correct. A diet of live/frozen/freeze-dried black/bloodworms, mysis shrimp or plankton should do.

So in that case I think I'll attempt to breed some of those pond snails we have in a seperate tank.
Other than that I think we're pretty much set up to go. How well do dwarf puffers travel? We're visiting our in-laws this weekend and there's usually at least one aquatics shop near them with DPs in stock. If we were to buy them down there would they be ok with the five hour car journey back home? We've done this with guppies before with no problems, but we've also discovered its not a good way to buy otos!

All of my snail-breeding tanks have had filters, usually air-driven, but much of that is just to provide some circulation and aeration. My care of a snail-breeder tank is identical to that of a fish tank: filtration, large partials, heated, lighted and generally planted. A filter is really not absolutely essential, but is preferable. I want my feeder snails every bit as healthy as my fish, otherwise I would not use them.

The hunting behavior is more important to me then the incisor wear. I have never yet seen a DP with overgrown incisors but mine have always gotten about 50:50 live snails and live blackworms. The balckworms are so soft the give no incisor wear at all. I add their snails at night (tank lights off) so they have a chance o scatter and require hunting the next light cycle.

If you want to breed DPs (that tank will be fine for doing this, BTW), do not add red Cherry shrimp. If they establish in the tank, they may well eat the DP eggs.

HTH

RTR, thanks for the additional info. I was actually planning on picking up a small cheap tank (the small plastic kind that pet shops sell as a starter kit, around 5g, for kids, hopefully I can find one that isn't bright pink!) next we're in the pet shop. I can stick a bubble filter in that and use it for snails. The only spare tanks we have at the moment are 10g, and I'm a bit reluctant to set one of them up just for a few ponds snails given I have pretty much already filled most available spaces in my home with fish tanks! I wasn't planning on adding cherry shrimp as a tankmate for the DPs - I was thinking more along the lines of them being an ocassional treat instead! Is this a bad idea?

A few more questions in addition to the one I asked earlier.....
How easy are they to sex when they're young? And if I am able to sex them in the LFS, then what would be a suitable male:female ratio? We were planning on getting 6 DPs, then adding some otos down the line when they next become available locally.
When you say our tank is fine for breeding DPs I asume you're talking about the Juwel tank we're going to use. Are you saying that based on us only having a single pair in there? DP breeding isn't something I'm too knowledgable on.....if we have a group of DPs and two of them decide to breed are they going to cause problems in terms of aggression with the other DPs? We have spare 10g tanks we can place breeding pairs in but I would ideally like this to just be a temporary solution before returning them to the Juwel tank. If breeding DPs are going to massively complicate things then would we best only getting females (or males) or are there reasons that wouldn't work either?

Sorry for all the questions. The more I read about these guys the more questions I come up with!

I was able to see the male's eye wrinkles at 1/2".

Hi,
So we picked up 6 dwarf puffers on Monday. They settled in very quickly into their new tank, more so than with a lot of other fish we've had within this time frame.
They are maybe slightly less than a cm long including their tails. The guy in the LFS wasn't sure how old they were, just that they are less than a year old. They took live daphnia off me on Tuesday evening, but weren't so sure about frozen brineshrimp last night. We'll have some live bloodworm left over tonight once the frogs have been fed so I'll give them some of that. Our LFS is getting some frozen blackworm in for us since nowhere local seems to stock it. Snail tank is set up, although with no filter right now because I don't have any spare airline for the pump - picking some up tonight. I've also got some brineshrimp eggs hatching so I'll see if they fancy a bit of that as a treat.
They've taken a little peck at the resident snails in the tank but so far haven't got any further than that despite me yelling "kill them" everytime they swim close to one.
They do seem to spend a lot time cruising the bottom of the tank having a nosy in the gravel, presumably looking for food.


I like how inquisitive they are. They are difficult to spot in the planted tank but if I stick a pipette in there with food they all come out the woodwork quickly enough to see what's going on.

yep, it took mine a while to get used to his tank. It used to take me a long time to find him in the tank. Now any time I approach he comes to greet me at the sides and follows me around. Super little guy.

Some fish I would not hesitate to use red Cherry shrimp as feeders - most Rainbow fish for instance, or a number of Tanganyican Cichlids. But I have never tried with DPs. I really do not know how effective they are preying on critters as adept at cover as the RC shrimp are.

Their strange feeding habits - careful examination of eat food item - may make them less effective. This would only apply if you wanted to breed the DPs (pretty easy with heavy planting IME). It seems absurd that the smallest know puffer has among the largest if not the largest fry in the group. RC shrimp are great fish egg eaters.