ive recently bought two tiny dwarf puffers, i checked around first and most people rate them as ok for community tanks.
however, ive noticed some tiny puffermouth shapes missing from my black moores recently!
what are your experiences with dwarf puffers? i see a few of you on here have them in community tanks. will mine settle down?
im never getting rid of them, theyre great, if i have to, i'll just leave them in my current 30litre tank when i upgrade the rest of my fish to the new 100+ litre tank next month, and run both.
I'm not sure what sources you acquired your info on DP's from, but though many behavioral attitudes a fish can display are almost as various as the fish, DP's are not a good bet for a community aquarium.
As juveniles they generally aren't too voracious to anything, and will with some stress tolerate pretty much anything as long as it won't eat them. However as they become adult fish (not much difference in size can be noted as they usually reach a maximum of 1" lol) Their demeanor toward even their own species can be pretty intimidating.
The general rule of thumb is this...a DP (I wouldn't recommend more than one unless you go by the 3 females to 1 male ratio) CAN be kept in a community aquarium, but does pose a risk as it becomes more aged and territorial. I would only find this acceptible under the circumstances that there is a TON of cover for your other fish, and the Dwarf Puffer to break line-of-sight of this little predator. Also when being kept in a community aquarium there should be a ton of room for him/her to observe its ''own'' territory. A DP will easily go after fish 3x its size, sometimes larger if they are slow moving and don't pose an immediate threat to its own life.
For species ONLY tanks the setup is recommended at 1 DP per 3 gallons of water, personally I think this is a bit cramped, but thats the minimum. Also when stocking like I mentioned earlier in species only there should always be 2-3 females per male. So if you were to go for a species only tank it should be at least 8-10 gallons large.
I keep my lone male DP in a 5 gallon with two tankmates, an otociculus and a shrimp. Both of which are low profile and the DP pretty much ignores.
There are sources out there that indicate several other species that a DP will almost never go after, but the list is relatively small.
In any case its good to see more interest in such a personable and interestling little fish.
My final thoughts, strongly consider moving any fish like tetras, guppys, even dwarf gouramis and other small species as you said you would. Your DPs MAY not bother them, but probably will, eventually.
thanks for the quick reply Tmercier!
right now i have 2 dwarf puffers (1 male, 1 female)
2 black moores
3 clown loach
1 plec.
all the fish are pretty small right now, so are comfortable in my 30litre tank, plus yes there is lots of plantation.
its only the odd nip here n there when the black moores come stomring into the DPs homes and start smashing things around in search of food (they've claimed a little corner each)
but yeah i think i will keep the DPs in this tank when i upgrade next month, or maybe buy the DPs a nano tank....
Now that I've had a closer look at your setup (haha)
I think your current tank would be exceptional for another female DP after removing the other fish in your upgrade, as a species only tank. For now 1m/1f should be fine, its mostly important that there aren't multiple males, as they don't like to share. lol
Nice looking little tank. I'll cross my fingers for your moors in the time being. =P
As far as the clow loaches, well...I hope they're the biggest reason for your upgrade, as they will get quite large and cramped in that tank, sorry to say. I wish I could keep some in my 16gal but its just not feasible.
literally in the last few minutes my DPs have started really attacking my black moores...its not good.
i might have to take my black moores out and keep them in a bucket or somehting until i upgrade! :(
i used to have 4 dwarf guarmi's (all male unfortunately) and they ended up claiming the tank, so the DPs were hiding before, now the DG's have been rehomed theyve claimed the playground!
yeah the clown loach get big i know :) but the next tank will be pretty large so...
if they outgrow that i'll either upgrade again or give them away to a good home.
p.s- thanks for the compliments about my tank :)
its a lot lot lot nicer and bigger in real life, but i havent got round to taking any good pictures with a decent camera yet.
I was at the local fish shoppe a few weeks ago and they had some baby figure 8 puffers. I asked the fish expert there about them and he said they were terrible to other fish. That was all I needed to know. He said that half the fish that were in the tank with them were nearly ripped in half by their sharp little beaks.
one thing about the dwarf puffer species, there is only one true fresh water puffer species and that's the pea puffer, they get no bigger than the size of a pea and really are agressive but even my neon tetras are three times the size of them, they are afraid of all of the bigger fish in my tank another thing to do is to keep them occupied with snails as puffers love to eat baby snails, they do tend to terrorize my absolutely large mystery (trapdoor) snails, but do not harm them, if you buy any of the other types of puffers you will need to make your tank brackish, i actually gained this information from a friend who is a fish biologist, same thing with fiddler crabs, otherwise the fish will eventually die. they can tolerate fresh water for some time however it will do more harm than good, as far as keeping them with other fish keep them with other brackish fish that wont eat them. and feed them plenty of snails i go to the pet stores and buy the snails they get growing in their tanks from the live plants they order.
i hope this helps a bit as far as information,
Brandon
Please read this link regarding the setup for brackish tanks, if you read down about a third of the way on the page where it talks about the brackish river set up this will show that the dps that you are speaking of are brackish.
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/brackish/brackish.html
see...theres a LOT of conflitction with puffers.
i bought them labelled as "pea puffers" and the LFS said they should have brackish water as they grow up.
i then look online to find pea puffers are dwarf puffers. just name variation.
and that they are 100% fresh water their whole lives.
i wonder how we can find out the truth about these puffers...?
yeah they are a variety of dwarf puffers, the problem is that there's a lot of conflicting information out there, a friend of mine is a fish biologist and has done his research on these little guys and among the dwarf puffers are several variety such as the figure 8 puffers and spotted puffers and so forth, pea puffers are so named because they never get any bigger than pea sized, i will have to get the actual scientific name for you, but the issue is that as far as all of my research goes, these are the only ones that are completely fresh water, most others are brackish or salt water. i will try to find a reputable source of information on the net that discusses these little guys as well as the others, i will post links once i do.
Community Creator
Malabar Pufferfish
Carinotetraodon travancoricus
Malabar Pufferfish
code No.
2311
WARNING! This fish should not be kept in a community tank or has too many conflicts with other fish to be included in the Community Creator.
Often sold simply as 'Dwarf' or 'Pygmy' Puffers these little puffers can make a great addition to an aquarium kept by experienced fishkeepers. Although the fish is relatively robust, great care must be taken in providing the correct tankmates, environment and diet. The aquarium should contain plenty of planting areas, in part to prevent squabbles. The fishes diet should include plenty of frozen or live foods including small meaty foods. Snails are a particularly good source of food. Scince these fish may have unpredictable behaivour, they are not included in the Think Fish Community Creator. Little reliable information is available on these fish, and some reports state sizes of up to 15cm, although this is likely to be a confusion copied from an original error. As with many other puffers, these fish can be prone to skin based problems such as whitespot.
Aquarium set-up and information
Aquarium suitability: 2/5
Sociability rating: 6/10
Area of tank: Bottom, middle
Aquarium water conditions: 7-8.5, m,h,vh Help and explinations of terms
Temperature: 22 - 28C
Feeding: Live, frozen, dried foods; include some meaty foods in the diet
Minimum tank size: 45cm
Min / Max number in tank:
Generally as a consensus from multiple sources I checked after realizing I had a snail problem in my 16 gallon...I went to search the term 'Dwarf Puffer' its generalized and almost any LFS within a 40mi radius of me sells them desribed as above. Dwarf Puffers. Almost all sources I checked were explicit in their mentioning that ''DPs'' are a purely freshwater fish, and also the ONLY freshwater puffer species. Most of these sources also cited that an adult sized Dwarf Puffer would reach a length of approx 1" with a rounded body. In all my searching I had never come across anything called a Pea Puffer. Just Dwarf or Pygmy. I'm not saying you're wrong or your buddy is wrong. This is just what I got from surfing the web, hours of it, and believe me like you've both mentioned I came across PLENTY of misinformation. Most of which was confined to answers.yahoo.com lol What a horrible source 9/10 of the time, and I have yet to ask a question on it. I can tell you at this point that my 'DP' is about the size of 6 peas, and that's probably as big as its going to get. heh On a side note a friend of my girlfriends purchased a figure eight and was misinformed...trying to raise it in freshwater, it didn't last more than a month. As far as I know both figure eights and spotted puffers are more aggressive, are larger, and are also brackish water fish.
I also feed mine frozen blood worms as a staple, and ramshorn/pond snails from my 16 gallon as a snack. He 100% prefers the snails, but doesn't seem to know when to stop eating them..sometimes I'm afraid he'll burst. lol
lol he will stop eating them when he is too full, as for the about the size of six peas, that's a big dp, i have some more aggressive faster tetra in my tank and plenty of plants as you can see, so i don't run into too many conflicts with the my fish, my discus don't mind them at all and my angels don't even bother with them the dps do like to eat brine shrimp and frozen blood worms as a secondary diet form, if they become a hassle i will move them to a tank where they can be by themselves with plenty of plants and snails to snack on but i don't see this being an issue, i hope all goes well with your puffer and that they wont beat up too badly on your other fish. good luck, and thank you for the extra information, it's always nice to be well informed.
Brandon
