I have a 16 litre (roughly 4 us gallon) aquarium set up, matured and recently going spare, I was thinking about some/a dwarf puffer(s) for the tank.

It currently has a large peice of bogwood in it and I could possibly add a few plants.


Considering the size of the tank how many puffers could I have and what tankmates would you recommend (if any)?
I was contemplating 3 or 4 otoclincus (sp?)?





Regards, Josh.

Have a read of the Dwarf Puffer info page, this might help you answer your questions

the tanksize will be your main issue, IMO you'd be best sticking to just the 1 dp


This post has been edited by Davo86: Jun 16 2008, 03:53 PM

Thanks for the info! I think I'll go with just one DP

I'm guessing any shrimp would get chomped?

yep, be sure to stock up on snails though

Check the pinned top at the top of the oddball forum.

I have three dwarf puffers, which live with nerite snails, otos, a bumblebee goby (which i cant get out ) and lots of different shrimp. all happy families.

Esfa, your tanks a touch larger than 16L, though

Josh, did you reach a decision in the end? I'd also say 1 dp max in a tank of that size

yeah.. it didnt work.. i meant to quote the thing about shrimp getting munched.

Oops

I got two more DPs yesterday...boyfriends for my 3 girls and they all moved in to a nicer larger tank

Yeah, I think I'm going to go with just one DP
I have literally hundreds of snails in my other tanks for him/her to munch on!


I know they can't bite through the shells of Malaysian Trumpet Snails, but do you think they would be able to eat baby ones (MTS)?

I've never had a problem with any of my puffers eating MTS.

Oh sweet, 'cause the tank I have prepared for the puffer is swarming with them.

Do you think this is a suitable habitat for a DP?

That looks nice. I'd personally add a few plants for it to swim and hunt round. The snails can live on the plants and it makes for more interest for the puffer as well. You don't want it getting bored so the plants will add interest. Normally lots of plants wouldbe added to break up the line of sight, but with one puffer you won't need to worry about really heavy planting for that

With MTS I'd be careful...even the baby snails have very hard shells...my F8s had enough trouble when trying to chow down on them when I first had them in their tank and in the end they just sucked the meat out of the shell. Imho you'd be better off with baby ramshorns and common pond snails. The usual rule for DPs is snails the same size as their eyes to chomp on with regard to crunching the shells as well


EDIT: thinking about it, you could buy some java fern an/or anubias to tie to the bogwood...would look really nice

This post has been edited by jennybugs: Jun 18 2008, 07:28 PM

Thankyou for your wonderful reply!
Puffers are an area of the hobby I'm new to, as you can see so all this info is a big help!


I have plenty of those small curly snails about fish-eye-sized which eat plants in my other tanks, so I'll feed the little critter on those, bloodworm, brineshrimp and do they take prawns or cockle to eat?




What an excellent suggestion about the anubias/java fern!
I will definately be buying some to plant on the wood!

I shall also add some other small plants to hide the filter/add interest for the puffer!

If I were you I'd ditch the incandescent light, you won't grow many plants with it.

I have no other means of lighting the aquarium as of yet.
I plan on investing in some decent aquarium lighting in the near future.

i dont have any lighting or my 10gal at all, and i'm growing java moss, java ferm, camboba (floating) elodea densa...

I would suggest having a look at the Arcadia lights that you can buy for their Arc tanks...they clamp on to the sides of the aquarium and come in two strengths... HERE
Plants like Esfa and I have suggested should grow reasonably well without masses of light. I have found anubias to be virtually indestructable and it grows like wildfire in my biorbs which have rather low lighting levels. OOOH try moss balls too. A quick search on evilbay will let you see they are cheap to get hold of. I also use my moss balls to place defrosted frozen bloodworms on for my DPs to eat when I've run out of live ones.

I haven't been able to get my DPs to eat prawns as they're a touch too large, but they do have a go at cockles if you open up the shells for them

Mine mainly eat small snails and live bloodworms and enjoy chasing brine shrimp, although they're not that nutritious so just for snack value really. You can keep live foods for about a week in a sealed jar in the fridge I find

Anything else you need to know just shout

This post has been edited by jennybugs: Jun 19 2008, 07:47 AM