Change of plan - schoutedeni

lilacamy931

Candiru
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So I chose the tank I wanted and its been doing well. This weekend I add a small shoal of tetras.

It has sand substate, live plants, led lights, external canister, heating and mopani wood. The mopani has LOTS of slime developing on it and just waiting for it to calm down. (Any easy tips to reduce or just patience please let me know).

As you will see from my original post i was looking to set up a fahaka tank and upgrade later . But I'm in love with this 200 litre tank now so doing the responsible thing of not going down the route where heartbreak might wait.

However still want a puff in my life and would want a schoutedeni - a supplier i'm in contact with is able to get one for me, so once confirmed the order, in 1 month+ I should be a proud new owner.

If anyone owns one please share some tips, I am reading all care facts can get a hold of but hopefully not being new to puffers will go in my favour. (Any particular foods they are good with?)

What I could do assistance with is stocking.

Currently there are 10 neon tetras and 6 gold tetras to add some movement to the tank.

Once the schoutedeni is added would there be other stocking options? I.e. building the tetra shoal - how many?

I am fully aware I may get a puff with a mean personality but only time will tell.

I also dearly would love to add a zebra plec next year when the tank has matured more but unsure if a good idea....




fishies.JPG
 
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lilacamy931

Candiru
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So I am thinking final stocking as follows (though trying not to overload bioload so if overstocking give me a nudge)

Neon tetra - 14
Gold tetra - 6
Bolivian Ram - 1
Schoutedeni - 1
Zebra Plec - 2-4 (these are dependent on a number of factors - i.e. puff mostly however unsure how messy they are compared to normal plecs)
 

magpie

Potamotrygon
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Hi! There are a couple of threads in this forum discussing Schoutedenis... There is info there. I'll find you a link. Do you have any specific questions about them?

The stocking sounds fine to me. The Zebras though - are they the expensive ones that hide a lot? ;) If they are expensive you might wait and just get one to start. My Sch. puffer has been fine with every single fish of mine excepting 2 polypterus, and he nipped their fins. (But not ALL of the polys, just to confuse me.) Mine was fine with plecos though. You just never know - it's a cross your fingers and wait type of thing.

I think you'll love your puffer choice! :)
 
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lilacamy931

Candiru
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magpie magpie thanks for the threads really appreciated.

The zebras as going display only can get what they call "snub" nosed ones - seen some for £30 each rather than couple of hundred for breeding pairs. Might go with your suggestion of 1 or 2 and see how they fair.

I think question wise - any tips of types of food this puffer likes and anything different you did with this puffer would be great.

I've had a range of puffs in the past including pygmies, lurkers and once a fahaka but be good to know any tricks or tips for this type :) Thank you again

EDIT: While I wait for puffer is it worth introducing shrimp or snails to start breeding in their ready?
 
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magpie

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For food mine eats snails (I have to crush harder shelled ones like MTS), bloodworms, live blackworms, krill, and sometimes if he's not being picky he'll eat small bits of clam or squid.
I made Repashy last night and he tried it repeatedly but spit it out. Was trying to find a staple outside of the above. Maybe I'll keep trying or try other types.

I do think training to eat out of tongs is good because it just helps you to assure they're getting what they need with the other fish in the tank.

Definitely get a snail tank going! I think if you start them in the tank as soon as you introduce the puffer they'll be eaten immediately - decimated population. :) I recommend doing a small tank for the snails. Mine has maybe 4 shrimp in his tank that are large enough that he doesnt' kill them. But he ate all the shrimplets.
 
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lilacamy931

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magpie magpie thanks for that. Just spoken with the LFS and it will likely be 3-4 weeks before puffer arrives (if not new year if gets caught up in christmas time).

Would that be time to establish a small shrimp colony?

I can still set up a small ramshorn tank in meantime.

Have you ever tried these whole dried snails?! Just found these on Ebay they sound bizarre!
 
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magpie

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No! Never heard of them! Hmmmm

If you start off with a bunch of shrimp I'm sure you'll have a good amount to at least start breeding within 3 to 4 weeks time.
 
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simko

Exodon
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Cool idea about the T. schoutedeni ! I bought 2 about amonth ago. One was quite a bit larger than the other, so im going to assume that I got an older puffer and a younger one… these are all wild caught so its tought to know the age.

Tankmates:

Right now these puffers are in my 65 gallon tank, they live with a small group of fancy guppys, two Neolamprologus pulcher fry (they escaped my net when I was trying to remove all them), some misc. cory catfish and a few plecos. I haven’t seen the puffers kill anything, the guppys surround them when they are eating to catch small food particles. I previously had some rainbowfish and a giant danio, but they were way too fast, and stole any food that I was trying to give to the puffers.

Feeding:

These are my first puffers, at first they were pretty sluggish and barely ate. Now when I come to the tank the larger one comes to the surface where I feed them and swims around feverishly! The smaller one stays back a bit but usually comes up for food.

They are better eaters now, but I started by using trout worms and cutting them into small pieces, then I would use long forceps to “hand feed” the puffers. I recently bought a sheet of frozen hikari krill, I break off one or two krills and thaw them in water, I then use scissors to cut them into small bite sized pieces. I let the krill sit at room temp for a while then individually hand feed the puffers again.

One thing I did this morning was chop up some garlic and soaked it in water, I then defrosted krill in this water and let them soak for ~1 hour… some people claim this increases apetite but to be honest, I didn’t notice any different, these puffers are always hungry and always come up for food…when I have time, I will feed them twice per day.

I would like to echo those who said start a snail tank… I did this and it works well, my snail tank is actually a 5 gallon bucket from a wine supply store, it has a moving bed K1 filter in it in a 2L pop bottle, I added crushed coral as the “substrate” and theres also an eheim heater… I also have a TINY LED light on a timer. I added some bladder snails and bought 5 mystery snails which have now laid 2 egg clutches. Im hoping these hatch soon so I can feed my puffers tiny mystery snails in addition to bladder snails. I change the water on this bucket ~every 10 days or so. The bucket has some anubias in it and I feed the snails tums, cichlid pellets, and crab cuisine (it has extra calcium) I also drop in algae wafers when I remember to. I recently found a recipe for snail jello and made that this morning, I will add some to the bucket tonight to see how that goes.
 
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magpie

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Again S simko - waiting for PICTURES of your pair! ;)
 
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