Questions about Carinotetraodon travancoricus

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Madou

Polypterus
MFK Member
Nov 22, 2013
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Hey guys!

Been fiddling around with my smaller tank, now that the 180g brackish is up and running, and I am thinking of pygmies.

Tank is 350L (90ish gallons).

I want it planted (mostly vallisneria as I love these plants) with some (but few) driftwood.

My idea was to have a shoal of Carinotetraodon travancoricus and here come the usual questions, I guess!

1. How many can I house?
2. As much as I know tank mates are hit and miss (they usually are with most fishes), would I be able to keep things like a shoal of cardinalis or small barbs? Would the smaller loaches do well? Perhaps a rope fish (I believe they don't get thick enough to eat puffers)? Dwarf cichlids? Some of the pretty L numbers?
3. What do you keep their teeth in check with? I can't really imagine finding the smallest snails for sale, and I doubt they'd eat the bigger ones... Shrimps? Anything?

I wanted to have a lot of fish, and one center piece, but I believe pygmies would be a lovely point of attention, especially in a big shoal. :)

Please don't hesitate to give pros and cons of whatever fish is in that extensive list of mine! ;)
 
3. What do you keep their teeth in check with? I can't really imagine finding the smallest snails for sale, and I doubt they'd eat the bigger ones... Shrimps? Anything?
You can usually get free pest snails at your lfs, if you ask, if not you probably have a friend who will give you some. Even if you can only get big snails, any non-livebearing snail will produce copious amounts of tiny babies. Your local lake/pond/river/stream should have a large gastropod population. Just make sure you are not collecting anything legally protected and quarantine first (this is probably a bad idea). If you have a brackish sump, some cucumbers can support a massive nerite population, which will not only keep your puffer's bellies full, but it will give you something to trade in at your lfs.
 
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You can usually get free pest snails at your lfs, if you ask, if not you probably have a friend who will give you some. Even if you can only get big snails, any non-livebearing snail will produce copious amounts of tiny babies. Your local lake/pond/river/stream should have a large gastropod population. Just make sure you are not collecting anything legally protected and quarantine first (this is probably a bad idea). If you have a brackish sump, some cucumbers can support a massive nerite population, which will not only keep your puffer's bellies full, but it will give you something to trade in at your lfs.
Well, i'm going to need to buy plants, and those are usually infested with them. perhaps I can fill a small tank just to put snails in there with some cucumber.

So snails are mandatory? Can't substitute with shrims or something else? :)
 
You can probably feed them other things. I just wrote about snails because they are cheap, easy & I know about them.
 
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As for the tankmates, any idea?

That's kind of a deal breaker, so i'd rather not have them than have a species only tank (I don't mind species tank, but if I have to make a species tank, it's going to be Channas, which is my second choice if this one isn't working!).
 
I've never kept puffers, but hearing from people who have, something expendable and unlikely to be a bully is the best you will get. Dan Hiteshaw keeps puffers, including pea puffers (aka Carinotetraodon travancoricus) on his Youtube channel with guppies, endlers and small tetras. He says mollies will bully the puffers. (I like his channel, Hendre Hendre does, too) Here is a link to a video he did on those puffers:
 
Put the breaks on folks... lets go right back to the start for a second...

Did i read correctly this is a brackish water tank??? If so dwarf puffers are not a suitable candidate as they are a 100% freshwater species...

So i would either find a brackish puffer such as an F8 puffer or go straight freshwater and make it a planted dwarf puffer tank...
 
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Okay, now that im sitting down again lets cover more details...

1. Pest pond snails from your LFS would be perfect to feed your dwarfs, they are tiny puffers and need tiny snails... slightly larger snails they'll likely suck the meat out and leave the shell, but snails like nerites will likely be too big...

They will however still likely attack and kill the snail leave a mess in the tank if its not removed, and trust me when they rot they really stink when removed...

2. Tankmates are hit and miss, but in a large enough tank with lots of decor to break lines of sight its doable...

Just choose fast moving fish with SHORT fins, any fish with long flowly fins will be nipped beyond belief...

Hope that info helps...
 
Put the breaks on folks... lets go right back to the start for a second...

Did i read correctly this is a brackish water tank??? If so dwarf puffers are not a suitable candidate as they are a 100% freshwater species...

So i would either find a brackish puffer such as an F8 puffer or go straight freshwater and make it a planted dwarf puffer tank...
Oh hell no, I am glad you did not read correctly! :D
I finished my brackish setup (180g) for my monos, toxes and scats (waiting for my gymnothoraxes and flouders!).

This gave me time to restart my other tank (90g), and before I do that, I must decide on what goes in it. Right now, it's either puffers (And god knows I want a fahaka...) or channas, but I have done all channas, and I didn't want another species tank, so I asked the King of channas if he thought of anything other than bleheris that I could have multiple of given enough room. Depending on that answer, and what I get from puffers, I'll make my choice. :)

Okay, now that im sitting down again lets cover more details...

1. Pest pond snails from your LFS would be perfect to feed your dwarfs, they are tiny puffers and need tiny snails... slightly larger snails they'll likely suck the meat out and leave the shell, but snails like nerites will likely be too big...

They will however still likely attack and kill the snail leave a mess in the tank if its not removed, and trust me when they rot they really stink when removed...

2. Tankmates are hit and miss, but in a large enough tank with lots of decor to break lines of sight its doable...

Just choose fast moving fish with SHORT fins, any fish with long flowly fins will be nipped beyond belief...

Hope that info helps...

It does help a lot, in fact it makes me feel a little better about tankmates.

I want the tank well planted, regardless of what I choose to go with (channas need them, puffers won't mind them and it gives LoS breaks).

Tank mates are a must if I go puffers, I believe they hide quite a bit, and I want activity in that tank. Nothing fancy, no big fish, just colors and movement, to make up for puffer's lack of it.

I would still consider them the main piece of the tank, because unlike anything else I want in there (besides perhaps a fancy pleco), they would have personality (we all know cardinalis are not the most personable fishes :P).

My only concern is being able to provide snails. Our LFS are not quite as friendly as they seem to be all over the world, but I guess I can always check if they'd be willing to part with a colony, and I could breed that in a 30L (8g?) tank. Which is why I'd like to know if krill, shrimps, or soft shelled critters would suffice in keeping their teeth in check, as I heard it's not as critical for pygmies as it is for other puffers, but is still something to pay attention to.
 
^ i'm glad i read the first few posts incorrectly, was running around and must have missed parts...

Anyway, dwarf puffers can be quite active in a large enough setup especially once they recognize you, they will almost always come swimming out in the open to see what you are doing...

Not to mention, in something like a 90G, you could easily get away with up to around 5-8 puffers with other tankmates... just try and find more females to male ratio so that any aggression is dispersed between thw group... maybe 2-3 males with the rest being males if you go with 8...

As for the pond snails, they do breed pretty quickly and easily, just make sure they are fed and you should find yourself with a colony in no time...

Finally, their food items; frozen bloodworm cubes, frozen krill cubes etc all were taken quite happily by my dwarf puffers in the past, and unlike most other puffers, these guys rarely need their teeth taken care of, which can be a bonus for some...
 
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