20g Dwarf Puff tank

[Rudy2860]

I had planned to turn my 55g into a dwarf puffer tank but after some consideration and thought about trying to get it heavly planted i changed plans to turn a 20 g into a puff tnak. The amount of size compared to that of the 55g is less so it will be alittle cheaper on the wallet to do the conversion.


I'm just conferming the idea of perhaps 6 dwarfs, 4 corys or 3-4 ottos, a small army of ghost shrimp or amano/bamboo shrimp (depending if they consider these guys lunch or not)

hopefully the shrimp will be friend and not food so they can act as cleaners but who knows! I was considering either otos or corys, i know otos would rarely come into contact with the puffers and there would be little to no problems with them corys might be a bit risky but still relatively a safe bet. Corys would love the sand substrate and keep it semi mixed whcih would be a plus but i'm still not sure one which.

just got tons of new rock now that the snow is melting so i cant wait to aquascape this tank along with the 55 g who i will be stealing afew plants from.

but the real question was the number of dwarfs in the 20g.... 5-6?

 

[Lithril]

First of all the shrimp will almost certainly eventually end up as food, they may get on for a little while but I wouldn't say they'd last long, although the puffers would love you for putting them in there

20 gals would be enough for about 4 dwarfs although you would need about 6-7 caves for the lil fellas, if you're going to plant it quite heavily then that should take care of breaking up the line of sight between the caves.

I wouldn't put cories in there they'll most likely get ripped to shreds, the otos should be fine. I also keep bristlenose plecos with mine, they'll see the puffers off but won't aggrevate them too much. Also the plecos stay small and eat both algae and meat so make a fantastic clean up crew. I'm going to try banjo catfish soon as well so I'll let you know how that goes (although if you put them in, don't expect to see them very often).

I use sand in most of my tanks, and the beauty of this with puffers is you can put a load of malaysian trumpet snails (conical shaped cones) in with the puffers, these bury into the sand and keep it turned over, the puffers will eat the snails to keep the population down.

 

[freshwatergal]

IMO, you would be safe with 6 dwarfs in a 20 gal tank. I have 6 in my tank and have no problems what-so-ever. I would personally stay away from the cory's as well. And as stated above, the ghost shrimp will most likely become food.

HTH & Good Luck,
Tiff

 

[Lithril]

I would say bear in mind that puffers become more grouchy with age and they should live for quite a few years in the proper conditions. With that in mind you can get away with six but you should be prepared to relocate if necessary.

 

[diVer]

i know otos would rarely come into contact with the puffers

Hehe, my otos try to clean the sides of my puffers, the puffers just swim away and don't attack back.

 

[Lithril]

My Colomesus Puffers (meant to be the most least aggressive) don't let the otos anywhere near them, regularly chase them off, I've actually just lost 2 Otos, not sure if its puffer related or not.

 

[dixaisy930]

I've had better luck keeping an even number of dwarf puffers. It seems they will sort of pair up, and then pick on the lone puffer (just my personal experience...never really heard of anyone else having this problem).

As for the ghost shrimp, myself as well as Many_a_molly ( I believe) bought ghost shrimp as food, and atleast mine are still around (all seven of them) after a year and a half! Some where smaller than the puffers.

I would have to agree with the others...cories and puffers do not mix. I foolishly tried it, and to my horror saw my dwarf puffer sneak up under one cory while she was swimming up and down the side of the aquarium, and grap on to the cory's belly...not good

 

[SirMinion]

Our foursome of puffers are kept in a very heavily planted tank with 10 neons, two bristlenose plecos for the algea, four bumblebee gobies for the scraps and two peppered cories for sand mantanence.

The Puffers chase eash other, but leave everyone else alone. No problem.

I think the secret is the heavy planting and the live food we give them (which everyone enjoys) - bloodworm, artemia, daphnia and baby ramshorn snails (I breed them for the puffers)

Keep the puffers full and busy and they leave their tankmates alone.

Here's one of our foursome tucking in to a dinner of live bloodworm...

 

[petitericeball]

hey minion if those are live bloodworms do you get them at a bait shop or something?? and what do you use as the holder thingy

 

[SirMinion]

hey minion if those are live bloodworms do you get them at a bait shop or something?? and what do you use as the holder thingy

The live bloodworms come from our local aquarium shop who also do live artemia (brine shrimp) and daphnia (water fleas) They come in little sealed bags for 55 pence (UK sterling) which keep the live food alive for up to a week. One bag feeds the whole aquarium.

The puffers go insane for food that wiggles

The holder is a little plastic cone with holes in for feeding live worms and came from Pets at Home (petsmart) and is made by Hagen.

Actually we don't use the feeder anymore as they seem to prefer to hoover the worms off the sand.

 

[Lithril]

Mine go mad for earthworms now they've figured out they're food, usually end up having a tug of war with the things.