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Pea Puffers and vacation auto-feeding... anyone have experiences to share?


BBR
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Hello fellow Nerms!

I have a 10 gallon that'll be ready for new occupant(s) in a few months. And I'm really considering 1 or 2 pea puffers as a mostly species-only tank. However... post-covid I'm eventually going to be back to taking 3-4 week out of country vacations once a year or so. And the normal auto-feeder strategy I apply to my other tanks has me concerned if I get pea puffers... since I understand they are extremely unlikely to take to flake food or bug bites/etc. 

Obviously frozen foods wouldnt work in an autofeeder... I'm wondering if something like freeze-dried blood worms/etc might? 

Anyone have direct experience in this situation with pea puffers and a multi-week vacation using an auto-feeder? 

I'm looking for self-sufficient solutions/input, as I'm not really wanting to go the fish-sitter route/etc.. and might nix the pea puffer idea if it really had to come to fish-sitters.. 

Thanks!

Burt

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I have pea puffers and they will not touch anything frozen or dead. I do go away and leave them with plenty of live snails in the tank. Make sure your tank is heavily planted and you have a healthy colony of snails (bladder, ramshorn). Breed lots of snails in a separate tank as well and before you go, give the puffer's tank a good clean and large WC, then drop the live snails in it. The puffer will find them.

My concern is the water quality. A 10 gallon tank is not huge. I have mine in a six gallon but I have a canister filter and as I said before, lots of plants. My canister filter has a 10 gallon capacity, and I also run a sponge filter. They are adorable poopy heads!

Don't even bother with an auto feeder.

Edited to clarify: I have one puffer per tank.

Edited by eatyourpeas
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I don't think overloading the tank with snails would work since pea puffers tend to go on murdering sprees and only take part of the snail meat. They would probably deplete their food source within a week and the leftover snail bits would pollute the water. A 10 gallon would be too small for the snails to hide effectively or deal with that much waste. 

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On 7/1/2021 at 4:36 PM, Ogpulchra said:

I don't think overloading the tank with snails would work since pea puffers tend to go on murdering sprees and only take part of the snail meat. They would probably deplete their food source within a week and the leftover snail bits would pollute the water. A 10 gallon would be too small for the snails to hide effectively or deal with that much waste. 

You are correct! But, if there is enough vegetation and nooks and crannies in the tank, the snails will have cover and can lay eggs as well. I can only relate what has worked for me, but I can see it may not be a successful approach for everyone.

Edited to add: Not to hijack this thread, but I do love spiders!

Edited by eatyourpeas
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On 7/1/2021 at 4:36 PM, Ogpulchra said:

I don't think overloading the tank with snails would work since pea puffers tend to go on murdering sprees and only take part of the snail meat. They would probably deplete their food source within a week and the leftover snail bits would pollute the water. A 10 gallon would be too small for the snails to hide effectively or deal with that much waste. 

yeah thats definitely my concern too... thanks for your input!

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You can fill an external breeder box with snails and then let snails meander into the bigger tank on their own to autofeed the puffer. The Fluval external breeder boxes are perfect for that as they have an easy to use escape route for the snails. Keeping the snails fed for three to four weeks could be challenging. You could put an autofeeder on the breeder box though for that. It's an option that could work. I have a couple of breeder boxes full of ramshorn snails now. I can post a photo later if you'd like.

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On 7/2/2021 at 4:00 AM, gardenman said:

You can fill an external breeder box with snails and then let snails meander into the bigger tank on their own to autofeed the puffer. The Fluval external breeder boxes are perfect for that as they have an easy to use escape route for the snails. Keeping the snails fed for three to four weeks could be challenging. You could put an autofeeder on the breeder box though for that. It's an option that could work. I have a couple of breeder boxes full of ramshorn snails now. I can post a photo later if you'd like.

Yes pls I'd love to see that setup!

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Here you go. The first two photos are side views of the two breeder boxes currently brimming with snails. (Bear in mind I put one snail in each a few months ago.) and the third photo shows the top down view showing the channel the snails could escape through into the big tank.

 

IMG_20210702_114043148.jpg

IMG_20210702_114048785_MP.jpg

IMG_20210702_114101126.jpg

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On 7/2/2021 at 8:45 AM, gardenman said:

Here you go. The first two photos are side views of the two breeder boxes currently brimming with snails. (Bear in mind I put one snail in each a few months ago.) and the third photo shows the top down view showing the channel the snails could escape through into the big tank.

 

IMG_20210702_114043148.jpg

IMG_20210702_114048785_MP.jpg

IMG_20210702_114101126.jpg

This idea is super helpful, thanks a ton for the pics too... what size is the main tank? 

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I have heard of some people who just dump some live black worms in the aquarium substrate when they go on vacation. I’m not quite sure about this idea as I’ve only heard it from online sources, so I’m not sure if they will just die and spoil the water. If someone could weigh in, that would be great! 

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