Hi
Coleb5 Welcome to the forum. Hope you enjoy it here as much as I do.
Now I have a 20 gallon fresh water tank with 5 gold tetras one platy and a emerald catfish. Now I know these little guys are aggressive so would any of these fish be okay with them?
The Dwarf Puffers are pretty mischevious and like nothing better than to ride another fishes fins or tail accross the tank until they are ripped off (at least mine do) so the Tetras and Platy would be finless in a couple of days. I'm not too familure with the Emerald catfish, but if he just hangs around like our Upsidedown or Banjo cats it would probably be Ok...but I'd keep an eye on it if it is like most catfish as it would probably try to make a meal out of the puffers at some point (which would probably kill the cat as the puffers produce small amounts of tetraotoxin, a powerful poison).
If you are looking at relocating the other fish then you could comfortably house 6 or 8 Dwarf Puffers in the 20 gal, provided it had multiple hiding/sleeping spots for each puffer (plants work well, as well as caves and pots)
Secondly they need snails to wear down thier beaks correct? How big are the snails you feed them? And can you only feed them fresh water foods or would sea mussles and snails do. (Where I live they are far easier to obtain).
With the Dwarf Puffers, as William mentioned, the small pond snails work well and seem to be in good supply at most lfs (remember the Dwarfs only grow to about 1 3/4 inches so the snails should be about the size of the end of your pinky, or even smaller) . I don't think that the salt water snails would hurt them, but any that didn't get eaten right away probably would die in the FW and cause a strain on your tank. As for the muscles, if you can get them to eat them they would be a good food, but I find with my Dwarfs that if it don't wiggle or squirm, it isn't recognised as food. I feed mine frozen bloodworms and frozen Brine/Mysis shrimp, with about a dozen snails once a month. I have read many posts from other Puffer keepers (more the BW than the Dwarfs) who report that their puffers love chopped up clams and muscles so if you do get your Dwarfs to eat muscles let me know (I'm too cheap to try myself, as muscles are quite eqpensive in Calgary). They also seem to like munching down the occasional Ghost shrimp (I use them in the Puffer tank to help clean up, and as a treat that the puffers have to hunt down).
and one more thing. I have alot of live plants in my aquarium is this okay for the puffers? Or will they tear it apart?
As Willian also mentioned, your plants will be fine, in fact the more the better in the Puffers opinion as they make great hiding places. But from the viewers point of view too many plants means that you don't get to see much of your fish....If possible try to space your plants and decorations (they love bogwood as well) to break up the puffers line of sight while still being able to see well yourself...I find it also helps to contour your substrata into hills and valleys, this seems to cut their lines of sight while at the bottom.
What kind of currant do puffers like or does it matter?
I have my little pack in a 25 gal Hex with an Aquaclear200 back mounted filter and it seems to suit them well. I find they like varied conditions, sometimes they like play in the current from the outflow, other times they stay in the calmest spot in the tank for hours, still other times they play in the bubble wall for hours. I have also put som floating plastic plants in the tank and they seem to like to play in amoungst the plants as they swirl in the current...they almost seem more like little dogs than fish...except they don't hump your leg
We have a Koi pond out back and I always see little snails in there. I breed them in the Winter
As long as you're confident about the health of the snails that would be a great source (your fish are what they eat)...probably a good way to retrieve the snails from the pond is to put a piece of cucumber or zucchini in the edge of the pond and the next day when you pull it out it will be riddled with snails...even some of the larger ones would be good occasionally, the puffers will go right inside the shells to rip out meat if they can...it's hillarious watching one swim around with a snail on his face..
But I would really like to have a cat fish or some other bottom feeder since puffer are messy eaters. Are thier any that will be able to hold thier own, my cory cat is a little too nervous I think
The Dwarfs aren't too bad when it comes to being messy (they're just so small) but if you want bottom feeders go with peaceful nocturnal ones or some large Ramshorn or Apple snails...they get nipped at but are too big to be eaten. Corys would not be a good idea as they twitch around too muck and would get nipped up severly
im thinking of maybee getting a load of puffers in my 4 foot tank but im not shure if they would fit or what they would eat or if there might be a nice type of cat fish that would go niceley with them
Well
Jamnog you could get a lot of Dwarf Puffers in a 4ft tank, but as for tankmates they don't make good community fish. I have found that they go well with fish that are not aggressive and don't swim around alot (mine are currently housed with Bumblebee Gobies, they were briefly in a tank with Upsidedown cats and neither had any problems) so you might be ok if the rest of your fish were either fairly static, or peaceful nocturnal (my puffers go to sleep in by 1030 every night whether the lights are off or not, and the last one comes out of the plants in the morning about 15 mins after I turn the lights on)
what sort of water they would like is my external filter system suitable
I am fairly lucky that we have relatively good water here in Calgary it has a Ph of 7.5 right out of the tap so I don't do a whole lot to it other than add AquaPlus tapwater conditioner...for some good ifno try
Ian Wests Puffer Site it has some good info on Dwarfs as well as other Puffer info, Chunkypuff.net had some good info also, but unfortunately their site has been down for a couple of months.
As far as the external filter, as long as the intake is too small for the Dwarfs to fit through it will be fine.
HTH.
Don
The websites I found so far are too general and I'd like a more definate goal for my water.
