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Pea Puffer Tank Clean Up Crew


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Hi everyone! 

I have a planted 29 gallon with 8 pea puffers. I need a little help with algae clean up in this tank. Has anyone found any fish that could get along with these guys and eats some algae? I've only kept pea puffers in species only tanks so I have no experience with how they would treat other fish. Are they aggressive with fish that are bigger than them?

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I agree with @Keeg. The only time I've seen pea puffers behave with other fish is when they were raised in the tank with those other fish, all of whom were bigger than them even when they were full grown. 55g heavily planted tank, too. No nippiness from them. That's literally the only instance I've seen of them NOT being "jerks" unfit for a social setting. 😁

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I think most puffers like to test boundaries with their mouth. So it could work great one day and then be bitten, eaten, etc by the puffers at any point.

What kind of algae? 

I would probably scrape / remove the surface algae when doing maintenence. 

But for plants substrate etc I have had variatus platys (almost exclusively females live long enough to get smart) live in an ambush puffer tank for a year and reproduce no issues. I have also had a kidders livebearer female live in a tank of 6 pao palustris adults for 5 months and then move in with with 3 adult hairy puffers for 3 months and counting. She eats all the food bits they spread across the tank. Livebearers are fairly smart and do clean up well for me with bigger puffers.

I would probably try black chinned livebearers or maybe a short finned endler variety in a pea puffer tank if it were more of a plant surface algae. That would be with the understanding that the puffers might like them more than I do and a plan b might be needed should it go bad. 

If you have substrate and don't mind them i would also look at Malaysian trumpet snails. I have them in a dwarf chain loach tank you never see any during the day because the loach eat them but at night they come out and feed on algae etc. 

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I tried Otos and it did not end well for them. I got them out of the tank, but not soon enough, and they died of their injuries. My pea puffers are not keen on sharing their kingdom with any other fish.

Lots of bladder and ramshorn snails work, and one of the puffers seems OK with Amano and Neocaridina shrimp. It depends on the puffer.

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I have lots of breeding snails in my puffer tank that include bladders, ramshorns, and there may still be some pond snails, too.  There were a lot of MTS’s added and I saw a lot of them initially, but rarely now.  [I just checked (well after lights out) and only a few MTS’s seen, but I still have several ramshorns of breeding age.  The MTS’s may still be hanging out in the substrate.  I’m also seeing plenty of scuds moving around tonight which I don’t see in here during the day at all.]

I also have a few horned/thorned nerites since those have proven to be proof against pea puffers, and a few marble limpets since they are also fully protected against pea puffers by their shells.  There are also a few Amano shrimp in this tank since they seem to do OK in with pea puffers IF you get them big enough and get them in the tank early enough they know where to hide.

I did NOT have good luck with otos in with pea puffers.  And ember tetras did not do well as dither fish in with pea puffers, FYI.

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The SAFEST course of action for all the fish involved is to keep the puffers by themselves and just take care of maintenance yourself - using a dimmer light will help, especially if you load the tank up with floating plants. Helps keep the glass clean of algae.

But, I've had luck with ottos with some of my DPs. My current little guy doesn't bother the two in his tank, and he also doesn't bother the large ghost shrimp that's been in there for almost a year. He will, however, 100% attack and smaller shrimp or snails. Some of my previous DPs haven't allowed anything else in their tank at all (including other DPs). It's very much an individual basis, and it's why I tend to try and steer people towards keeping them solo anyway!

Whatever you end up doing, just have a plan B!

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I had a bristlenose with 5 pea puffers in a 20 gallon and they never seemed to bother each other. Granted they all started in the tank together at the same time and they were all juveniles, which seems to be the most effective judging by what other are saying! The size difference seemed seemed to be enough to deter any bullying. Along with them not competing for food ect ect. 

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