The Puffer Forum

First off, my tank:

1. I do not know the exact water parameters of my tank at the moment. The tank, however, has been up and running for several months now.
2. 10 gallon with 2 dps, 2 mollies, 2 honey gourami's, some pond snails and lots of plants.
3. Food: fish flakes, algae wafers, freeze dried bloodworms, and frozen bloodworms for dps. Products: Tetra Aquasafe, Flourish plant supplement (just a tiny bit).
4. Added a minimal amount of new gravel (heavily rinsed first), one tiny new plant.
5. Several months, cycled with 2 mollies. Dps and gourami's were not introduced until yesterday.


Yesterday I purchased 2 dps and 2 honey gourami's to add to my tank. I did the usual and floated the bag in the tank first for a good 25 minutes, then released the fish into the tank (but not the pet store water). Three of the fish are acting normally, but one of the dps is clearly not. After a few hours it had lodged itself into a corner almost under a rock and wasn't moving at all. Eventually one of the mollies came and scared it out. I fed the two dps some frozen bloodworms and both swam to the top and ate it. This morning the dp was moving very slowly and would not eat anything. Now it's just resting on a leaf and not moving at all, but still very clearly alive. One of its fins looks odd, as if it's extra white and also frayed at the end. Should I quarantine immediately?

You should check the parameters of the tank as soon as possible. You cycled the tank for enough bacteria for 2 mollies and that's all, you added in a lot of fish today and probably overloaded the bacteria with bioload, you may be mini-cycling. Tetra safe start would help with that, your dp just looks fin nipped.

Yup, definitely going to check the parameters asap. Still very new to fish care so I didn't realize the tank might not be adequately cycled. If it helps, I was able to test ammonia today and it checked out at 0 but I'm getting the whole water testing kit tomorrow too. I should also have noted that I have actually have two filters going simultaneously and I do 25%-30% water changes generally about 4-5 times a week. I hope the litter bugger gets better! Thanks for the reply!

That tank is overstocked. Maybe you could set up a separate tank for the puffers? They're gonna pick on your other fish.

Def overstocked.

Your little DP looks a bit skinny and this could be from improper feeding from the LFS or he has IPs. IME DPs are prone to have IPs from the fish store and I would QT and start treating food with Prazipro. I would also make the decision to keep either the DPs, mollies, or gouramis, but only one of those pairs. If you keep the pond snails with the DPs then the DPs will kill the snails and the water will be polluted by the parts of the snail that can't be eaten.

I would STRONGLY suggest keeping the 2 DPs and returning the mollies and gourami, as a 10g is too small for those particular fish as adults.




you're gonna experience an ammonia or nitrite spike very soon by adding so many new fish at once in a small tank. Please return them no matter what advice the LFS gave or will give you.

+1 to all above. I would step up the waterchanges until you have decided which to keep. Welcome to the forum

Would the dps and gourami's be able to coexist in that tank together (minus the mollies)? I ask this because they did come from the same tank in the pet store (a terrible reason to ask, I know, but still a reason) and my tank is pretty heavily planted and decorated with little caves and nooks. I'm not pushing the dps to be community fish, just wondering if it'd be ok bioload-wise and such. (Don't worry, I'll be depopulating the tank regardless)

The 2 dps will stock that tank fully on their own. To be safe I would get a suitable ip med to soak their food in.

I'm sorry for the silly questions but how do I determine which is a suitable IP med?

Jungle fizz tabs are the favourite among the people here from usa

Eventually, the DPs will become lil monsters & nip relentlessly at the other fish.

I see. Ok, I'll be moving the dps to my spare tank asap. Thanks for all the help!