Freshwater puffers

[chunksofpoooo]

yeh, thanks a bunch guys, youve helped a lot (seeing that the dude at my lfs doesnt really speak english, and i can barely get him away from his chinese soap operas). At any rate, the puffer would deffinantly be a second choice to the African butterfly ive been looking at for ages....or rather looking for. If i was to get a puffer it be a few dwarf puffers, most likely the 1male to 3female ratio that RTR suggested, and i would most deffinantly remove everything from the tank. My friend is getting a 10gal from home this fri, so id give him the tetras and shrimp. Could i keep the chinese alge eaters in there? they generally hide in the lava rock cave, ive never really seen them mid level or anything.

The tank is planted, id look nice with something like a few puffers.

thanks a bunch

 

[OrionGirl]

Monitor the algae eaters. My puffers mostly ignore the rainbow shark, who similarly spends most of his time in a cave. I've seen a few scuffs on him, and can't decide if it's from the puffers, or if he is fighting with the big bristlenose male for the cave. I usually decide the latter, and just keep adding more wood and caves.

 

[chunksofpoooo]

i finally found that ABF i was looking for, but im still really looking at dwarf puffers. On my wishlist for now i guess.

could i have a single dwarf in a 5.5gal?

 

[nicolleen]

@RTR
i'm sorry my BIG mistake, i meant the steindachneri (palembang) of course!!
lg
niki

 

[OrionGirl]

A single dwarf would be fine in a 5.5. If you can get females, you could have a pair. I started with mine in a 5, and they were okay. The biggest problem is feeding the greedy guts often enough--they can't eat a whole lot at one time, especially as juveniles, so multpile small feedings through out the day work better. In a bigger tank, they will be okay without as many feedings if there's an in tank food source, ie, snails. In a small tank, they will easily find and eat every snails you put in there--at least mine always did.

 

[chunksofpoooo]

how, exactly, can you tell the difference between the sexes?

 

[OrionGirl]

Lift up their tails!

http://www.dwarfpuffers.com/intro4.htm

 

[chunksofpoooo]

i was gonna say look up their skirts

thanks

 

[OrionGirl]

You'd make a boy puffer wear a skirt? :laugh:

 

[chunksofpoooo]

Thanks for the site. It said that 50% weekly water changes is best, but would i have to change this because im only getting a 5.5gal? 50% is a lot, but 5.5gal is really small for a pair of such suposedly messy eaters, not to mention i wont be able to keep anything like shrimp or alge eaters.