Deciding on the right puffer

[Bluu831]

Hi I’m researching the best puffer to put in my 10 gallon tank. Because I don’t really want to upgrade the tank(I have no space at home) it’s either a couple pea puffers or a figure 8 puffer. But I haven’t seen anyone have one in a 10 gal so I don’t know if it would be ok. It has plants and has tons of hiding spots in the tank as well. What would be the best puffer?

 

[Essjay]

Figure 8 puffers need a bigger tank than 10 gallons, I'm afraid. 20 gallons is the minimum.

Tetraodon biocellatus (Figure Eight Puffer) — Seriously Fish

www.seriouslyfish.com

But the tank is OK for dwarf puffers - they need 2 to 3 gallons per puffer, so maybe 3 in 10 gallons. They do need a heavily planted tank as these fish are inquisitive and need things to explore.

 

[Lillypad101]

I had a pea puffer with a couple other fish in a 10 gallon, but it ended up almost killing them. Lesson learned, pea puffers are aggressive, and shouldn’t be kept with other fish. Maybe a group of the same species will work though. Pea puffers can be hard to see because of their size in a densely planted tank, yet they like the cover the plants provide.

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum

Pea Puffers are your best option - there is a lot of misinformation about Pea Puffers and dwarf puffer species out there. Pea Puffers in particular are a schooling fish in the wild living in quite big numbers in small areas. The minimum tank size recommended for them is 60 litres but if you can get up to 100 litres that's even better.

In a 60-litre tank you could have 6, some people have success keeping them with other fish like otos or fast-swimming schooling fish but personally, I'd let the puffers have the tank.

The next small species are Red Eye Red Tail Puffers but you really want to be 100 litres + for them, again with a group of 5 or 6, with these you are best with one male per tank and they are really easy to sex. I have a group of 4 at the moment in my 100 litre, just looking for some more females but a bit tricky to track down as more males get imported than females. You could potentially keep a single male of these alone because of their nature but its not ideal, though it can be argued its a humane option because of the aggression levels they display? I keep mine with Amano Shrimp, Glowlight Danios and have kept them with some Gobies.

One thing to mention with any puffer is making sure you have a plan on how to feed snails - they don't like big snails, they need to be ideally about the size of the puffers eye so you usually need to have them breeding in another tank so you can pluck out a couple a week per puffer.

Wills

 

[Lillypad101]

I had Japanese trapdoor snails that bred regularly that I fed my pea puffer. I believe he also ate other things though, like frozen bloodworms.