The Puffer Forum

I'm waiting for my lfs to get their dp's in, and during that time I've been researching as much as I could. I've heard puffers in general are pretty smart, but I haven't found much on the dwarf puffer in terms of intelligence. Compared to other puffers, how smart do you guys find dp's to be? What proves their intelligence to you?

They appear to be about as intelligent as any other puffer.. Mine know who feeds them and come begging and swim towards me when they see me!
Fish in general are smarter than people give them credit for, but puffers just seem to burst with personality!

Someone else may be able to better answer though, as I've only ever had 3 species of puffers.

HTH.

GSP, you've had three more species than I have ever had! I have bettas right now(all in their heated, cycled tanks) and they all do those same behaviors you've mentioned. It'll be interesting to me to see how they compare to each other in terms of how aware/interactive they are.

Can someone take a look at my tank and tell me if a dp will be happy here? Please ignore the betta, he's keeping the tank cycled until I get the dp. I will add a few more caves and decorations when I get the dp, but how is it looking so far? Any suggestions?

DP would be very happy in there!

Wow that looks great! Your DP is going to love it What kind of filter do you have?

Very nice

Thanks! At the moment there's a cycled sponge filter in there, and an uncycled Aquaclear 20. I'm keeping the sponge filter in there until at least the HOB is securely cycled.

Love your tank!

I've only kept DPs (for now) and I will say, mine are very intelligent (for their size, esp), sociable, interactive and trainable.

They definitely recognise faces. When I'm in front of the tank, they swim up, and beg for food. My husband has been very hands off, so when he sticks his face in front of the tank, the DPs take one swift look, hide in the back, and peek out, all suspicious.

My female knows when it's the pipette or toothpick, it's bloodworms and mysis shrimp time, and rushes to the surface. If it's my fingers, she knows it snails, and hustles over to the 'feeding rock' for me to drop the snails on. The male is more brute than brains, and just stays on the surface, regardless. My female also eats out of my fingers, altho I wont suggest this method w/ a bigger puffer.

Thank you! The fact that they can distinguish faces makes me think they are more intelligent than my bettas, every time they see a person they immediately swim up to be fed. I love reading everyone's experiences with their dp's, it's making me so excited to get mine!
My lfs received six of them on Thursday afternoon, by Friday all had died but two...I'm unsure what happened, but I'm thinking it was maybe either the stress of shipping or something went wrong with the acclimation. Either way, she quarantines all new fish for two weeks so if these two survive until September 3rd then I will have my puffer! My tank-bred, beautiful little puffer...

Hey there! First post on this forum. I love my 2 DP's, very smart and know by who and when they get fed! Mine love snails and frozen bloodworms. One question: How do I post a new thread here? Not trying to hijack, just want to know because I'm a newbie lol.

Keeping fingers crossed that you'll have your DP home in September. They are great little fish. My female's spots are iridescent, and really stand out when she is hunting. My male turns a gorgeous dark olive when he is excited, and has gorgeous yellow edging on his fins.

Unfortunately, I returned my male to the LFS. 2 DPs in a 10 gal just wasn't working out for me, cos the male was relentless and very aggressive. My tank is heavily decorated too: live/fake plants, rocks, driftwood, terracotta pots all jammed in there. It didnt matter. It was hard decision, cos I had him when he was a baby, no adult markings.

My female uses every inch of her 10 gals now and loves it. Hillehaus (an experienced puffer keeper & member) said that 1 DP / 10 gal is best, and I definitely agree with him based on my experience. Despite their size, their personality & bioload wld do best in this ratio.

OK, that turned out longer than expected.. but just sharing my experience w/ everyone. Bigger is definitely better for these fish, and it's painful when I see keepers jam several puffers into an inadequate sized tank, and think that's OK.

CheezPuff, I'm not sure if you can make your own thread until you make enough posts for the moderators to stop 'policing' everything you post. But go into the section you want to make a thread and there should be a button with red text that says "New Topic" on the left side of the screen.

TheStig, I've definitely decided on only one dwarf puffer for the 10 gallon, I've been reading the previous threads on this forum and that seems to be the best way. It seems that would be my only choice anyways if I were to get the puff from the lfs...another one died yesterday so there's only one left. I asked the owner what was going on and she explained that the wholesaler she bought them from ships them out almost right after they get them, no quarantine or anything. This explains why she is very strict on her 2 week quarantine, and after seeing how the six puffers she ordered has been whittled down to one in just five days I am very grateful for it. She thinks it is the stress that gets to them. Really hoping this last one is a trooper, I would very much like to have my puffer next week!

Anyone can start a new thread, they just need to wait for me to approve it. I'm running this site all by myself now.

If everything goes well I should have my puffer tomorrow, I'll keep you guys updated!