Hidr
Oct 8 2007, 12:34 PM
I would love info from people that have those cute till dwarf puffers.
What the eat?
How much salt?
What kind of salt?
How big of a tank?
Are there any live plants you can keep with them?
Can you keep more then one?
If you do keep more can you get them one at a time or do you have to get them all at once?
Pixiefish
Oct 8 2007, 03:17 PM
Hi Hidr, good to hear you're thinking about puffers. Puffers are the funniest fish , full of personality and really fun to keep. I'l try to help as much as I can.
What the eat? Very important - livefood like bloodworms and a regular supply of snails to keep their beaks from overgrowing. They do not take flake or pellets.
How much salt? No salt - they're freshwater fish.
What kind of salt?
How big of a tank? Maybe 10g- 15gals. DP's only grow to about an inch so if you want to watch them closely, you'll find they get lost in a large tank.
Are there any live plants you can keep with them? Sure - you must - anything tropical. They like a heavily planted tank.
Can you keep more then one? Yes, but they are very nippy and males can fight to the death during mating time so keeping more females than males is likely to cause least trouble.
If you do keep more can you get them one at a time or do you have to get them all at once? A bit like goldies, they are very messy and have a high waste output, especially as their diet is high protein. They absolutely MUST have a cycled tank with good capacity filtration. They cannot tolerate any ammonia or nitrite, so adding one by one is probably a good idea unless your filter is very well seeded.
Other info: They like a warm temp - around 80 is good.
Also, a slightly alkaline PH is good and will discourage ich - maybe 7.2.
Weekly water changes of at least 50% is necessary as the nitrates tend to climb with all the proteins in the tank.
The number of fish you can keep really depends on the level of filtration - they say to allow 3 gals p/fish, but I think this is too little considering their waste output and their predatory, terratorial nature.
Hope this is enough to be going on with. Let us know what you decide.
Pixie
Hidr
Oct 8 2007, 03:51 PM
Live food? Well that puts me out no sourse of live food here and I don't care to raise bloodworms. lol
Pixiefish
Oct 9 2007, 05:19 AM
They don't have to 'alive' and wiggling - frozen livefood, ghost shrimp or anything the lfs can supply would do. Just not flake or pellets.