New to pea puffers

[Kaosu]

..While getting a new 55 hex with tons of stuff in it... a friend offered me two puffers

he said they were pea puffers and he started out with 3...the two remaining killed the third.

so while doing some research i have figured out i have a male and female!...the male is much brighter and has the wrinkles around his eyes while the female is rounder and pail..and no wrinkles.

ok so!!!
they are currently in a 16 gallon sand bottom tank with a few plants, set it up using established media from another tank.

they were a bit thin when i got them..there last owner was feeding them nothing but freeze dried blood worms, i knew from reading on the forum that they love and need snails....so two days in to this they have mowed threw allot of bladder and ramshorn snails they seem to be doing great and are much rounder.

They are so adorable!

any info or tips on keeping them happy would be great!.

ill get in tank pics soon but this is all i got for now.



...my cam is out being borrowed so ill get new pics next week.

any info would be great!

 

[Fat Homer]

Well you got the basics down, they love snails and blood worms and black worms, keep them in a planted tank (if possible since they love hunting and searching), about 5G per puffer is the recommended min. so tank size shouldn't be a problem if they are going into a 55 hex...

Just becareful if you mix them with other fish as they can be nippy... although they seem to do okay with Ottos, and sometimes Dwarf shrimp...

 

[Kaosu]

Well you got the basics down, they love snails and blood worms and black worms, keep them in a planted tank (if possible since they love hunting and searching), about 5G per puffer is the recommended min. so tank size shouldn't be a problem if they are going into a 55 hex...

Just becareful if you mix them with other fish as they can be nippy... although they seem to do okay with Ottos, and sometimes Dwarf shrimp...

they are currently in a 16 gallon with two ottos, plants are a med sword..a large dwarf lilly, pennywort, water sprite water lettuce and frogbit..filling it in with clippings from my other tanks, this is there home^_^ i got the 55 hex from the person i got the puffers..they were offered at the same time.

i grow my own black worms as well and will be offering them some soon..going to make a snail breeder box to put in the tank to house adult snails and only let the tiny ones out.

they are so cute..a very unplanned surprise!

 

[Fat Homer]

^ Sounds absolutely fantastic... be sure to post some pics of the setup once its done... can't wait to see what their home looks like...

 

[Pufferpunk]

Congrats! They will breed in Java moss.

 

[Kaosu]

ok borrowed a camera..its not as good as my other one but.. i got a few hosts of the tank..and a small video ^_^

im working on trimming down my other tanks to fill this in or them..as well as adding a few logs!..its still a work in progress.




and them...kinda blurry



...hunting the snails..witch are all mostly empty at this point..they came to me rather thin and are nice and round now!



and the video..witch is also kinda grainy
[video=youtube_share;jH4wtaGIAWY]http://youtu.be/jH4wtaGIAWY[/video]

 

[Pufferpunk]

Nice tank! Glad to see you have Java moss in there, although you could use more plants. They like it heavily planted. How many puffers & what sexes?

 

[Kaosu]

Nice tank! Glad to see you have Java moss in there, although you could use more plants. They like it heavily planted. How many puffers & what sexes?

I ended up with 2 one male and one female,
I plan on adding more plants, I need to trim down my 10 gallon and add the trims to there tank rather than feed them to my cray.
If i had planned on getting them i would of had a tank already up and going but they were a surprise pick up that i could not pass up ^_^.
more plants to come....and soon a i get to my LFS ill pick up some as well.

also adding a log and two med anubia today!

 

[Pufferpunk]

Not good. Males will fight to the death. Can you trade one of those males back for a female?

 

[tjfish]

If you read the post, the op stated at least twice that they got 2 of these. 1 male 1 female.
That being said I love those lil guys, well guy and gal. Very cute, and i've heard they are a blast to watch.