The Puffer Forum

Hi,
We are going to be getting two dwarf puffers, and I have read about not letting them in the air when moving them. I can see how the lfs can bag them for me and them not get air my question is how do I put them in my tank without putting lfs water in my tank and still never have them in the air.

I don't think a little air is going to hurt them...if done quickly.

I have always put the water from the bag into the tank after floating them for a period of time and slowly adding tank water to the bag to acclimate them.

Hilly wrote:I have always put the water from the bag into the tank after floating them for a period of time and slowly adding tank water to the bag to acclimate them.

I never thought of that, I will be doing this from now on, it seems like a great idea.

strike2 wrote:I don't think a little air is going to hurt them...if done quickly.

That's too risky for my liking, i'd rather take my chances with the lfs tank water than expose them to air for any period of time.

Shaddy is there anything else already in the tank?

No we are in the process of getting a tank ready for them, I'm just trying to get all the information I need to avoid last minute panic attacks and mistakes

Is the tank already cycled or is that what you are in the process of doing now?

It is not cycled yet my son is bringing us the tank tomorrow and we plan on doing a fishless cycle before adding the puffers. Am I correct in that the dwarf puffer is the only smaller freshwater puffer?

It is the smallest species , yes

What size tank are you getting for them and how many are you thinking of getting?

It's a 10 gal and we hope to have two. Is there another puffer that takes 30 gal tank or under that is fresh water?

2 in a 10g is fine.

in a 30g FW you could have either:
1 South American Puffer
1 Fangs Puffer
1 Abei Puffer
A pair of Red Tail Red Eye Puffers
1 Baileyi
1 Arrowhead
There's plenty of options.

Look in the PufferPedia freshwater section, recommended tank sizes are given in there of what you could keep.

I thought the only true FW puffer was the dwarf, I mean that would fit in a smaller tank like a 30 gal I'm going to look up those that you have named .
So when I bring the puffers home I should after waiting and mixing water together put all the water in my tank to be sure that they don't get air?

There are plenty of true freshwater puffers from 1" to 30"

I float my bag for about 15 mins and then carefully open it and start to add a bit of tank water every 5 minutes for the next 30 mins. Then I submerge the bag and let the fish swim out in their own time.

I found this way worked for me but i'm sure others will chime in with their own methods so you can get a few opinions.

I think I'm more comfortable with putting the water in also.

I have one more question is there another puffer that would be a little bigger that we could put in a 10 gal ad least to start with?