Help starting a 10g dwarf puffer tank

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Biotoper

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Dec 18, 2004
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Ever since I got my 75g community, my wife's been talking about dwarf puffers, so I'm planning on starting a 10g tank for Valentine's. I have a bunch of questions:

1. Tank - standard 10gal glass (20x12x18 I think) - I haven't ever shopped around for tanks this size - someone said that Walmart is the best place to find cheap 10gal tanks?
2. Puffer stocking - 3 DPs, preferably 1m/2f if I can sex them at the LFS. I thought I'd avoid any other fish like Otos, but I'd like to add some shrimp - what are the best choice for a) tank cleaning (it'll be planted - see below), b) not becoming puffer dinner, and c) cool factor - amano, cherry red, ghost?
3. Planting - my 75g is getting taken over by Vals and Watersprite, so I'll transplant some of them to the 10g. Eventually, I'd like to hang some emergents on the side paludarium/hydroponic style, with their roots in the tank. Which brings me to...
4. No hood - I was thinking of placing a telescoping desk lamp or 2 with those screw-in spiral flourescent bulbs over the tank. Since the tank'll be pretty low on the desk, I want it to be interesting to look at from above. Evaporation might be an issue, but I'll be doing very frequent water changes anyway.
5. Substrate: Ecocomplete; other decorations: rocks, driftwood. Heater of course.
6. Filter - here's the big question - I was thinking either HOB or internal. I don't have much experience playing around with the HOBs but I would like something that can allow me to DIY the filter set-up rather than being constrained to just using that particular company's replacement filters. Ideally, I'd like to just move some of the live bioballs from my 75g to the new 10g filter, and have some reusable floss pre-filter. Any suggestions?

Ok, that's it. Thanks for reading.
 
1. Tank: I got mine from Wal-Mart for less than $10
2. 3 puffers is a good number to get. However, some really enjoy shrimp and some don't. I would test with ghost first to see how interested they are in shrimp and FME they are very much like little fish bulldogs which means they can be very ferocious. Keep snails in there though.
3. Plants seem ok but most emergents can quickly out grow a 10 gal and are actually extremely large plants. Secondly, use a lot of plants. It breaks up line of sight and keeps aggression to a minimum.
4. My puffers have jumped before so I would keep a lid on, though you could get a 20 tall and fill it half way and that way you could possibly keep a paludarium
5. Sounds good
6. I use a small penguin with a sponge
7. Check out this website: http://www.dwarfpuffers.com
 
Before you buy the puffers I would highly look into where you will be buying them, what they were feeding and whether they are malnurished before you buy them. If the place says they have been feeding them flake food them they are probably on their way to death. In the early stages of their life dwarf puffers will generally take nothing but live food. Snails area large part of their diet so you really need to have a lot on hand. The best thing to do is set up a small snail breeder tank with ramshorns and pond snails. They breed quickly and easily and you will go through a lot of snails really fast.
 
I have 4 dp in a 20L. They get feed snails and bloodworms. Haven't been able to get them to eat anything else other than live brine shrimp as a treat. I recently added some ghost shrimp to the tank, and I haven't noticed the puffers really going after them. I would try ghosts first since they are cheaper than the amanos. For filtration I have an Aquaclear 55 on it with a nice sandy bottom. The only suggestion would be to add a sponge on the filter intake to make sure the snails won't wind up in the filter instead of the dp's tummy.
 
Thanks for the help everyone. I like twdockery's idea of getting a 20g high and filling it halfway or so to avoid needing a hood. I know aquascapers usually scorn this, but I personally like having a lower water level (my 75g has an overflow so I can't do it).

So if I do that, I'll need to go with an internal filter rather than HOB. I did some websurfing - looks like the Hagen Fluval Intenal and Duetto Multi seem to be the most popular. Not sure if any of them would have room to use bioballs?

Ghost shrimp it is then.

Anybody have any good links on setting up a snail breeder tank?
 
Biotoper said:
Anybody have any good links on setting up a snail breeder tank?
Click to expand...

The topic has been brought up before and a search may be useful. You just need a small tank and something to move the water. Add snails and food (algae waffers, peas, almost anything) and snails will do their thing.
 
Snake Eyez said:
The topic has been brought up before and a search may be useful. You just need a small tank and something to move the water. Add snails and food (algae waffers, peas, almost anything) and snails will do their thing.
Click to expand...
here's an article on dwarf puffers

http://www.aquasource.org/CMS/modul...s&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=116&page=1

and here's the article for raising snails

http://www.aquasource.org/CMS/modul...Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=118

http://www.pufferfish.co.uk/aquaria/foods/snails.htm

im pretty sure RTR and Pufferpunk are gonna be here sooner or later ;)

here's the links to their websites:

http://puffer.proboards2.com/index.cgi

http://dwarfpuffers.com/forum/
 
The first article ref'd is not on dwarf puffers, but South American puffers, Colomesus asellus. I have not written formally on the dwarves, as I don't have enough personal experience as yet, but do have a couple of tanks of them going. I do help out on both the the dwarf and general puffer forums.

I don't like keeping any puffers in open-topped tanks, as there is a significant risk of losing them. They are quite accomplished jumpers. I have kept them in open-topped tanks with internal rim extensions, but I have lost fish from those tanks - not a fool-proof system.

DPs do not have the same high crunch factor requirement in their diet that many other puffers do. I feed mine live snails, frozen/thawed bloodworms, and live blackworms. I could likely expand their selection a bit, but I'm curious if I can get breeding on such a simple diet (I cannot resist experiments). The tanks are heavily planted and over-filtered, with 30-50% partials weekly.

DPs and Otos seem to co-exist well. Most DPs also seem to ignore most shrimp (one of my tanks has rednose-redtails with the DPs, I thought that I had lost them, but they have ignored each other). Other DPs will kill and eat shrimp, not predictable - pre-testing with ghosts is conservative.
 
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