Pea Puffer Wanted

[Sombat]

Greetings everyone. I have been wanting to have a dedicated Pea Puffer Tank.  Flip Aquatics and Aqua Huna have been out of stock for some time. Does anyone know where I can get a hold of one?

 

 

[Odd Duck]

Just watch Aqua Huna.  They’ll get them back in stock.  In the mean time, do you have some live food cultures started?

[TankofFish]

On 7/23/2021 at 12:06 AM, Sombat said:

Greetings everyone. I have been wanting to have a dedicated Pea Puffer Tank.  Flip Aquatics and Aqua Huna have been out of stock for some time. Does anyone know where I can get a hold of one?

 

 

not sure where your at but Imperial Tropicals  is a good place to keep an eye out also, they aree located in Fla.

[TankofFish]

On 7/23/2021 at 12:06 AM, Sombat said:

Greetings everyone. I have been wanting to have a dedicated Pea Puffer Tank.  Flip Aquatics and Aqua Huna have been out of stock for some time. Does anyone know where I can get a hold of one?

 

 

also they are best keep with at least 3 or more, depends on size of tank.

[JettsPapa]

On 7/22/2021 at 11:52 PM, TankofFish said:

not sure where your at but Imperial Tropicals  is a good place to keep an eye out also, they aree located in Fla.

I just checked their website.  It says they have 1 in stock, which seems odd.  Maybe it's a mistake?

[Ben_RF]

Getting fish is sometimes hard this sometime of the year.  You could go ahead and start getting the tank ready; come back in the Fall and get them.  That way your plants are all ready.  You could have a steady population of snails for them to feast on. And so forth. 

[Sombat]

On 7/22/2021 at 9:42 PM, Odd Duck said:

Just watch Aqua Huna.  They’ll get them back in stock.  In the mean time, do you have some live food cultures started?

I have bladder snails in all of my 4 tanks. For months I would remove them daily. They just keep coming. I had learned that I had been over feeding my tanks so I had since cut back   But then discovered the intrigue of the Puffer fish. 

[Sombat]

On 7/22/2021 at 9:53 PM, TankofFish said:

also they are best keep with at least 3 or more, depends on size of tank.

Oh, I had set up a 9 gallon Fluval Flex. I was planning on having just one. It was actually a Betta fish tank but he passed after 6 months. 

[TankofFish]

On 7/23/2021 at 12:52 PM, Sombat said:

Oh, I had set up a 9 gallon Fluval Flex. I was planning on having just one. It was actually a Betta fish tank but he passed after 6 months. 

I have 3 in a 10 gallon tank that is heavy on plants and my pea puffers are doing just fine....

 

[Odd Duck]

On 7/23/2021 at 11:49 AM, Sombat said:

I have bladder snails in all of my 4 tanks. For months I would remove them daily. They just keep coming. I had learned that I had been over feeding my tanks so I had since cut back   But then discovered the intrigue of the Puffer fish. 

Do you have other live food cultures started?  Speaking from experience (I have 15 pea puffers and have had the oldest over a year, now) you will need more than just bladder snails and more than just frozen bloodworms.  They need a variety of live and frozen foods (I honestly only rarely feed anything but live to my spoiled puffers) to keep them healthy.

They are considered a shoaling species and it’s now recommended they have a minimum group of 6 or more to spread aggression across the group with a sex ratio of 2-3 females per each male.  Along with this should be a minimum tank size of 15 gallons.  Heavily planted with a sand substrate (they will sometimes dive into the substrate when startled) at least 1.5” deep or more.  Lots of breaks in line of sight are important.  The males tend to establish territories and the females cruise through at will until mated pairs form.

So, plant the tank well now, get your snails in there and reproducing, and give it at least a couple months to establish if you haven’t already.  When you get your pea puffers, put them into quarantine for at least 4 weeks since you will need to deworm with levamisole weekly for 4 treatments.  Be prepared to use a fish trap to catch some of them (my first group had 7 of 9 males!) in case you need to adjust the sex ratios.  You will have to repeat a 4 week quarantine and deworming on new juvies if your sex ratio needs adjusting.

I love my puffers, but they are not easy!  My second group of juvies are just *now* where I can sex them and I have 4 females (and my rescued first, now geriatric, singleton male that got me started on my pea puffer Odyssey) are *finally* ready to go into the main puffer tank - today!

One of these days I’ll do a journal write up on the puffer adventure.

Pea puffers are all about planning ahead, getting live food cultures growing, planning out and setting up the right size tank correctly, and getting the right mix of sexes.  Oh, and weekly, 50-60% water changes.  Trust me on that!  You won’t believe what messy eaters they are and the amount of food waste they leave.

[Sombat]

Thank you very much for this information. I may just end up putting another betta in this tank. 

[Odd Duck]

On 7/23/2021 at 1:37 PM, Sombat said:

Thank you very much for this information. I may just end up putting another betta in this tank. 

They certainly are easier than pea puffers.

I just tried again to integrate my big, geriatric boy into a shoal. He hid longer than the others but as soon as he came out he started chasing girls then posturing to the resident male. When posturing switched to gripping and shaking him like a rag doll I intervened.

Grumpy Pea Daddy just forfeited his right to be a daddy and is now in what *was* going to be a Betta tank. 6G cube for him with a trio of 3 different nerite species and some baby ramshorns (I had already taken the adults out).

Resident male has a mark on his back but seems otherwise OK. Posturing and a little chasing with all the new peas but nothing looks serious.  He just seems determined to show off his soooooooo macho dark belly line to everybody.  😆

We’ll see how things go but it looks OK so far without Bad Daddy. 

[TankofFish]

On 7/23/2021 at 1:13 PM, Odd Duck said:

Do you have other live food cultures started?  Speaking from experience (I have 15 pea puffers and have had the oldest over a year, now) you will need more than just bladder snails and more than just frozen bloodworms.  They need a variety of live and frozen foods (I honestly only rarely feed anything but live to my spoiled puffers) to keep them healthy.

They are considered a shoaling species and it’s now recommended they have a minimum group of 6 or more to spread aggression across the group with a sex ratio of 2-3 females per each male.  Along with this should be a minimum tank size of 15 gallons.  Heavily planted with a sand substrate (they will sometimes dive into the substrate when startled) at least 1.5” deep or more.  Lots of breaks in line of sight are important.  The males tend to establish territories and the females cruise through at will until mated pairs form.

So, plant the tank well now, get your snails in there and reproducing, and give it at least a couple months to establish if you haven’t already.  When you get your pea puffers, put them into quarantine for at least 4 weeks since you will need to deworm with levamisole weekly for 4 treatments.  Be prepared to use a fish trap to catch some of them (my first group had 7 of 9 males!) in case you need to adjust the sex ratios.  You will have to repeat a 4 week quarantine and deworming on new juvies if your sex ratio needs adjusting.

I love my puffers, but they are not easy!  My second group of juvies are just *now* where I can sex them and I have 4 females (and my rescued first, now geriatric, singleton male that got me started on my pea puffer Odyssey) are *finally* ready to go into the main puffer tank - today!

One of these days I’ll do a journal write up on the puffer adventure.

Pea puffers are all about planning ahead, getting live food cultures growing, planning out and setting up the right size tank correctly, and getting the right mix of sexes.  Oh, and weekly, 50-60% water changes.  Trust me on that!  You won’t believe what messy eaters they are and the amount of food waste they leave.

 

WOW, you had to work a whole lot harder than I did. I started with 2 and found one at an LFS and got him. I do feed snails and live mosquito larvae, blood worms and during the winter time BBS. I only change my water once every 2 weeks and only do a 20% at that. 

 

[TankofFish]

[TankofFish]

[Odd Duck]

On 7/23/2021 at 4:21 PM, TankofFish said:

 

WOW, you had to work a whole lot harder than I did. I started with 2 and found one at an LFS and got him. I do feed snails and live mosquito larvae, blood worms and during the winter time BBS. I only change my water once every 2 weeks and only do a 20% at that. 

 

They have been a bit of a trial!  If I had known when I rescued Bad Daddy what all this was going to entail, I honestly probably wouldn’t have done it.  But I have learned a lot, now know what’s involved in maintaining multiple types of live cultures, know soooo much more about pea puffer behavior, about sexing peas, about husbandry, breeding (through reading only so far), etc.  I’ll comfortable with giving Bad Pea Daddy his retirement home and he’ll be spoiled for the rest of his days, but he won’t have the opportunity to hurt any other peas.

Bad Dad will be fine in his solitary confinement.  🙄

Main puffer tank seems to be settling down well.

I probably am the culprit with feeding more than they need, but I’d like to keep snails breeding in the puffer tank so they can get a snack if they want.  I do still supplement with other live foods, at least a little bit daily to make sure everybody is eating OK.  Even with heavy planting and filtration, because they can snack on snails at will and they don’t eat all of each snail, they always have spoiled food in their tank.

I would not repeat developing a snail culture in the tank if I was redoing their set up.  There’s too many in there now to remove them all.  If adding another 5 peas to the tank clears them out, so be it.  I’ve got snail cultures in other tanks, now.  They won’t run out and if I’m only adding enough at each feeding of snails small enough to eat whole, there will be less waste to deal with.  As I said, I’ve learned a lot, including things I would do differently.