The Puffer Forum

Hello puffer forum ,

I was lurking for quite a while and found this forum to be the best resource for all kind of information about puffers. I thought about getting a puffer for maybe half a year and got serious two month ago. Since then i got an additional 30L tank for shrimp/snail breeding (I have three of those now) and got a 125L tank for the puffers. Minus the huge hardscape, theres around 100L (27 US-gallon) swimming space left and my idea is to put 3 or 4 irrubescos in there. The plants still have to grow a bit, so I'll wait another 3 or 4 weeks until the puffers move in. The tank is divided into two sides by the hardscape and theres a little cryptocoryne-forrest in the back, so they can hide and avoid trouble with each other.

Now I had a weird idea and therefore I made an account to discuss it with you: Would it be a good idea to breed shrimp in the puffer tank? Someone in my area is getting rid of his shrimp stock and I could get a huge amount of red cherry shrimp for a really good price. I thought if I put maybe 100 shrimp in there, the puffers can feed on them and the shrimp reproduce at around the same speed as the puffers eat them. I wouldn't have any problems with food leftovers, because I don't put any dead meat in there and I could leave for a weekend without asking my neighbor to feed them. I would still feed red or black worm and snails now and then for a balanced diet.

My only objection is the fact that it's not natural for the puffers to have so much food available and therefore they could be overfed. I know that bigger puffers have this problem and get fat and sick if they eat too much. Does anyone know if that's an issue for irrubescos or other red-eye puffers as well or will they stop eating when they're full?

I'll make a new post in the right topic, if I don't get answers here or asking questions here is against the rules.

Anyway, I'm happy to be part of your community and I'm really looking forward to share a hobby with you all

I absolutely think they would eat until they burst. It's never good to stock a tmain tank with fod like that. Also, I would figure 10 gallon/puffer.

Alright, so three puffers it is and no shrimp breeding in there, thanks for your help!

If I put the shrimp into the smaller tank, would 100 reproduce fast enough to feed 3 puffers? I'm doing quite a lot to produce enough food, but I'm not so sure how much the puffers actually need. I have three tanks with ramshorn snails. There are about 10 to 20 grown ups, around 50 medium-sized (half an inch/1 cm) and hundreds of smaller ones so far.

I wouldn't worry too much. You're still going to need to feed a varied diet. Be sure to gut-load those shrimp before feeding to your puffers, for better nutrition.
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/

I'll try to worry less, thank you

I also had the idea of breeding the puffers, because I can only find wildcaught ones. But I'll try to get some experience first and maybe get another tank. That's definetly a long-term project, but I would really love to do it.

These guys are actually pretty easy to breed. Finding food small enough to raise the fry is the difficult part.