1, 2 or 3 pea puffers fish in a 10 gallons?

[Karen B.]

I would like to have pea puffer fish in my 10 gallons. The tank will be planted, heated, have a HOB filter and a sponge filter, substrate will be sand. Spicy only, or maybe with 1 or 2 ghost shrimps

I am reading online and doing my research but there is so many conflicting information, I am completely at lost. My goal is to have happy and thriving fish.
 

Personally I only want 1 pea puffer. I hate agression or fish chasing each other (I had a male honey gourami, everyone kept telling me they were a social specy and to get more. I got 2 females and now all the male do is chase them. I was told it’s normal behavior but that’s not what I was expecting as social fish and I enjoy my tank so much less now because of that…)

But I read pea puffer do better in group. Even read that a lone pea puffer can get psychological issues… 

So… can I have your opinion, experience, suggestions? I read a group of 3 is best in a 10 gallons. 2 f and a m, but as juvenile it’s hard to differentiate them… Do I buy like 6, put them in the 10 gallons all together and as soon as I can spot a male and 2 female, bring the other one back?

Thank you!

[JettsPapa]

I've seen conflicting information about them.  I'd say if you want just one then do that.  I certainly wouldn't suggest getting a larger number than you want.

Others may disagree.

[Mydonkeyfish]

Pea puffers are cute little balls of rage and might fight each other so i would stick with one.

[BETTA999]

get 3 with a good planted tank 

[Levi_Aquatics]

I would go with a solo puffer if you don’t want aggression but they might be happier in a group of 3. 

[Karen B.]

@Cory

@Irene

@Zenzo

Greetings!

I posted the above question here and on a few facebook groups. A lot of different answers, but also a lot of people wondering about the same thing as me.

Your blog article about pea puffer is very informative (https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/pea-puffer) but I still am confused about one thing : what is the fish’ preference? Some say a big shoaling group, some say minimum 3, I read somewhere that a lone puffer will develop psychological issue. There is a difference between the maximum number of fish you can put in a tank vs what the fish need to be happy and thrive. Could you give a bit more details? Do they enjoy/need company? 
 

Thank you!

[Zenzo]

On 1/30/2022 at 10:22 AM, Karen B. said:

@Cory

@Irene

@Zenzo

Greetings!

I posted the above question here and on a few facebook groups. A lot of different answers, but also a lot of people wondering about the same thing as me.

Your blog article about pea puffer is very informative (https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/pea-puffer) but I still am confused about one thing : what is the fish’ preference? Some say a big shoaling group, some say minimum 3, I read somewhere that a lone puffer will develop psychological issue. There is a difference between the maximum number of fish you can put in a tank vs what the fish need to be happy and thrive. Could you give a bit more details? Do they enjoy/need company? 
 

Thank you!

If you only want one, just keep one. You can always provide enrichment by offering foods that it can hunt (worms, small snails, etc.). You could also have other compatible fish in that tank. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I've heard like Zenzo said that they enjoy enrichment but to expand on the food thing: Interact with it just like you would a Betta- give them attention, teach them to chase a rod from one side of the tank to another (like the end of a tool or plastic stick). Get hoops and train them to go through for a treat. Get a little floating ball they can push around, get a marble for them to move on the substrate. 

[Karen B.]

On 1/30/2022 at 5:25 PM, Zenzo said:

If you only want one, just keep one. You can always provide enrichment by offering foods that it can hunt (worms, small snails, etc.). You could also have other compatible fish in that tank. 

@Zenzo
Thanks!

But from the fish’s point of view, what would be the ideal situation in a 10 gallons?! Are they social?

Edited January 31, 2022 by Karen B.

[Jennifer V]

@Karen B. I also did quite a bit of research about my peas before I got them and was completely confused. After a year of having mine, I've learned a ton, one thing being that they do better in groups. A 10g can't house the recommended six, but I have four in mine and they are perfectly happy with minimal if any aggression issues. I ordered mine as six juveniles from Aquahuna -- highly recommend! -- and rehomed the two males that started causing trouble. I actually talked to Aquahuna before I got them and they said that was completely fine. LFS will happily take the ones you need to rehome. I know that's hard because it's so easy to get attached to them but when you think about the health of the tank as a whole, it gets easier. So long story longer, I would go with three rather than just one. 🐡💕

[Karen B.]

On 2/4/2022 at 2:56 AM, Jennifer V said:

@Karen B. I also did quite a bit of research about my peas before I got them and was completely confused. After a year of having mine, I've learned a ton, one thing being that they do better in groups. A 10g can't house the recommended six, but I have four in mine and they are perfectly happy with minimal if any aggression issues. I ordered mine as six juveniles from Aquahuna -- highly recommend! -- and rehomed the two males that started causing trouble. I actually talked to Aquahuna before I got them and they said that was completely fine. LFS will happily take the ones you need to rehome. I know that's hard because it's so easy to get attached to them but when you think about the health of the tank as a whole, it gets easier. So long story longer, I would go with three rather than just one. 🐡💕

Thank you so much for your answer

So if I understand, you bought 6 for your 10 gallons, raised them and rehomed the one causing problem.

I think that’s what I will be doing. I like that idea - also allows to study their personality and see which one gets along best together.

Sadly I live in Canada, so no Aquauna for me but I think my LFS will take them back.

You mentioned having 4 in your 10 gallons? Could I see a picture? What do you mainly feed them? I started collecting my snails in my other aquarium. I will of course feed frozen bloodworm. Do they eat frozen daphnia and other?

I was hoping to culture some black worm but so far, can’t find anywhere that would sell it in Canada.

[Jennifer V]

@Karen B. Yes, I bought six to start with because Aqua Huna sells them in groups of six. I called the company ahead of time to see if that was ok and they said absolutely. They were tiny! Once they started showing their personalities, I got rid of two of them and luckily ended up with one male and three females. I think that might be the only reason why they're happy in my smaller tank. The male to female ratio is I think one male to every two or three females so if you get three, I would try to make sure you only have one male.

I feed mine frozen bloodworms and frozen brine shrimp thawed in tank water and Vita Chem. I'm also going to try frozen daphnia and cyclops. I'm not advanced enough to try live foods yet, but blackworms are a great idea. They also get bladder and ramshorn snails a couple times a week as treats. 

Here is my tank. I hadn't done my weekly maintenance yet so forgive the algae. I also take horrible photos! Ha! 

Another couple things you need to consider are algae control and tank maintenance. They are super messy so they need more care as far as testing and changing water. Algae can also get out of control easily. I remedy that with an adjusted lighting schedule. I used to have pretty much all types of algae in my tank but now I'm left with just green algae that I think looks pretty. In a tank that small, I think it would be hard to keep algae eaters but mine live up to their murder bean name so it may just be my group. 

 

[Colu]

I saw a video of pea puffers in wild and they were in large groups loosely spaced out  doing their own thing

[Odd Duck]

On 1/30/2022 at 8:10 PM, Karen B. said:

@Zenzo
Thanks!

But from the fish’s point of view, what would be the ideal situation in a 10 gallons?! Are they social?

Pea puffers are definitely considered a social, shoaling species.  It is not ideal to keep just one as they do not exhibit normal behavior and don’t tend to be as interactive in the long term as Bettas tend to be.  You can work with them and encourage it with enough time and effort, but they definitely appear happier within an appropriately balanced social group.  They tend to do best with a group of 6 or more to spread any aggressive tendencies.  And there will be aggressive tendencies.

I had one male pea that was so aggressive, even to females, that he ended up as a solo pea no matter what I tried.  It’s not the life I would recommend as ideal.  It can be hard to find get peas old enough to determine gender.  They all look female until they reach a certain age.  I think they know well before we know, so there will sometimes be fighting before we can tell which is which, so keep that in mind.  If you end up with all males, all females, or a single male with the rest females, you’re OK.  Any other combination in that small of a tank and it’s trouble.  It’s also difficult to introduce peas to each other as adults or even as older juveniles.

They do best with abundant live foods and some will eat frozen, but some will not.  They like whiteworms, blackworms, and Daphnia best (none of mine will even consider frozen Daphnia or adult brine shrimp).  I’ve not tried them on live adult or baby brine, but I need to.  Most, but not all, will take frozen bloodworms.  They also like snails with bladder, pond, and ramshorn being the favorites, and MTS’s after that, but they will not hesitate to bite at and eventually kill even large mystery snails.  They slowly harass them to death.

Mine did not even try live fruit flies or freshly squished fruit flies, and the fruits flies can invade your white worm and Grindal worm cultures (ask me how I know 🤬).  Speaking of Grindal worms, the juveniles like them but adults can barely be bothered since apparently they’re too small to be worth the effort (yet you’ll see them pick at stuff that appears invisible to us 🙄).  The adults also won’t bother with microworms or vinegar eels (but these will be eaten by tiny babies).  I’ve not tried Walter worms since they’re so similar in size to microworms.

Hope some of this helps.  I’ve had sometimes painful experiences with pea puffers, but they are fascinating.  I definitely do NOT recommend them for beginner aquarists.  They need a LOT more care than average and frozen bloodworms only are not sufficient as they slowly starve to death of malnutrition.

[Jennifer V]

@Odd Duck amazing info! I would like to add more variety to my peas' diet but I'm not sure where to start. I'm still a beginner Nerm having only been engulfed in the "hobby" for a little over a year so I'm not sure what to try next that would be easy enough for me to handle. I feed them frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp and snails right now. I was thinking of trying frozen daphnia and cyclops but it looks like my peas won't eat them because the peas are adults now. The thought of culturing worms really grosses me out but I'll do it if it's best for the water puppies. 

[Odd Duck]

On 2/4/2022 at 11:42 AM, Jennifer V said:

@Odd Duck amazing info! I would like to add more variety to my peas' diet but I'm not sure where to start. I'm still a beginner Nerm having only been engulfed in the "hobby" for a little over a year so I'm not sure what to try next that would be easy enough for me to handle. I feed them frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp and snails right now. I was thinking of trying frozen daphnia and cyclops but it looks like my peas won't eat them because the peas are adults now. The thought of culturing worms really grosses me out but I'll do it if it's best for the water puppies. 

Yours might eat them fine.  I think mine are very spoiled.

I forgot to mention scuds.  They really like scuds.  Scuds are easy to grow, but can be a pain to harvest to feed.  I’ve been playing with creating refugium type containers so the fish can’t get inside them to wipe out all the scuds, but any scuds leaving the containers serve as an ongoing food source.  I’m thinking I might see if I can get blackworms going inside these containers, too.

Whiteworms are very easy to culture as long as you don’t give fruit flies a chance to get into the cultures.  I deliberately bought a whiteworm starter culture that was more warm tolerant than most.  I’ve just recently restarted my whiteworm cultures in better sealed boxes because of the fruit flies.  I deliberately overharvested for weeks, washing the extra worms before putting them into fruit fly proof temporary containers.  They’re doing fine now but it will take a hot minute to get back up to the numbers that I’d like to have.

Grindal worms are nearly identical culture to whiteworms but like to be warmer.  Girindals can have mite issues in their cultures.  Make very certain you get clean cultures before putting them into your main culture boxes.  Starting them in deli cups with cloth covered, vented lids as a temporary measure so close scrutiny is easier is a good way to start.

Both whiteworms and Grindal worms can both be grown at average room temp (mine run 72-74’F) IF you get the warm tolerant whiteworms.  Bake whatever bedding you decide to use to eliminate mites before adding either type of worms.

Blackworms aren’t difficult to keep alive as long as they don’t get too warm (cool room temp is OK [72-74’F works for me, I know they have a wider safe range than this] as long as the water is kept clean), but I don’t know anybody that is successfully growing more unless they have a large outdoor pond/large container with a silty bottom.  Theoretically, you can stir them in your culture tanks to break them up and have them slowly reproduce asexually, but either I don’t have enough, don’t stir enough, they don’t grow fast enough, or whatever, but I slowly run out as I feed them to the fish.  I’m starting populations in some planted, fishless tanks right now.  We’ll see how it goes.  They can be hard to get sometimes and are pricey.

It’s also not difficult to grow snails in a separate container.  Right now I have 4, 5 gallon tanks with blackworms, snails, and scuds among them, 4 boxes for worms, 2 bigger boxes for whiteworms, 2 smaller ones for Grindal worms.  And I’ve got an old sun tea jug I’m working on getting set up for exclusively scuds and may add another one if I can find another, cheap enough, sun tea jug or an equivalent dispenser container.

Oh, almost forgot the microworms and vinegar eels.  Microworms I keep in deli cups with the fabric covered vented lids.  I’m currently using the leftover fruit fly culture media (might as well use it up, right?) and I try to reset the cultures every month at least.  If I go longer, they slowly fade and start to dry up.

Vinegar eels are very low maintenance but also fairly slow growth.  If you have a ton of fry that need extra tiny food, you’ll need quite a few bottles.  Bottles with long, straight necks are the easiest to harvest from.  For me, I’ve only got a couple bottles.

I’ve had terrible luck growing Daphnia but others do well with them.  My cultures either crash or usually just gradually fade, even when I have green water for them.

How’s that for a word vomit of live food culture?  There’s loads of information on line and here, on how to culture all of these.

Here’s a chart I put together, cross checking as much as possible from multiple sources, that lists sizes of common live foods suitable for any carnivorous fish (not the snails).  Even my Jack Dempseys love whiteworms and blackworms and they’re adults ~8” and 10”.  I keep threatening to try them on red wiggler worms but I don’t want to start another red wiggler culture, been there, done that, don’t need another worm culture at this point.

 

Worms:

Vinegar eels - 1-2 mm x 0.005 mm (Turbatrix aceti)

Banana worms - 1.5 mm x 0.004 mm (Pangrellus nepenthicola)

Walter worms - 1-3 mm x 0.005-0.01 mm (Panagrellus silusioides)

Microworms - 2-3 mm x 0.005-0.007 mm (2 sp. - Pangrellus redivivus and Anguillula silusiae)

Grindal worms - 10 mm x 0.5 mm (Enchytraeus buchholzi)

Whiteworms - 2-4 cm x 1 mm (Enchytraeus albidus)

Blackworms - 2.5-4 cm (up to 10 cm) x 1.5 mm (Lumbriculus variegatus)

 

Other Live Foods:

Infusoria - 0.005-0.5 mm (multiple different organisms)

Baby brine shrimp - 0.4-0.5 mm x 0.15 mm (Artemis sp. - in US is A. franciscana)

Adult brine shrimp - 8-20 mm x 4 mm (Artemis sp)

Fairy shrimp - 6-25 mm (multiple species - like a freshwater brine shrimp)

Daphnia - 0.2-5 mm (multiple species)

Moina - 0.7-1.4 mm (multiple species)

Scuds/amphipods - 1-8 mm (multiple species, some up to 3 cm)

Fruit flies - 1.5-3 mm (multiple species and strains)

Mosquito larvae - 3-12 mm (multiple species)

 

[Jennifer V]

@Odd Duck another *fantastic* bit of information! My head is exploding right now, 🤯 but I'll eventually absorb the info and get started on my gross but beneficial worm adventure. I have a paralyzed dog who needs her diaper changed every 4 hours, which I thought was gross at first. Now I don't mind it at all! I imagine culturing worms might be the same. Major ickies and then total acceptance. 

@Karen B. I hope this helps you! It's a lot to take in, but it'll be worth it if you try peas out. Knowing what I know now, I completely agree with @Odd Duck that peas are fabulous but not at all for beginners. I did get them as my first fish not realizing how challenging they are but if I can do it anyone can. Keep us posted about your progress! Would be cool to start a journal! 

[Torrey]

@Odd Duck has read about how I grow scuds (amphopods).

A large drink dispenser with a good 3" to 4" of bioballs, a piece of craft canvas cut to shape on top, and rocks/ gravel on top of that.

Insert an airlift tube and an airstone to produce an UGF for the amphopods, and don't expend much energy cleaning any algae as the amphopod babies depend on that to grow.

I couldn't get the camera to focus on the babies, there are probably thousands of amphopods in this 2 gallon container. They ate the hornwort when I had surgery. 

I throw salad scraps, old fish food, and the occasional blackworms in to keep this culture/colony growing. 

I open the spigot and pour a cup of amphopods at a time. 

Easy, peasy. Just don't let them run out of food, and don't allow food to get moldy, and your scuds colony will exceed your expectations. 

 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@TorreyDid you start with scuds, daphnia or which organisms are these amphopods? I tried daphnia last summer but failed miserably. I have also seen people use a "hay tea," to start as well. I definitely would like to try either scuds or daphnia again. This looks very doable. 

I have black worms in a 3 gallon. I think you can find a post from @Danielabout his live foods which is also informative and he mentions his supplier for black worms. That's what I used to start this colony. I have been feeding out of it 1-2 x a week stirring it up as this is how you get them to reproduce - when pieces are cut off the worm they form a new worm. They have a dedicated Coop sponge filter, no heater and lava rocks, gravel, crushed coral and stones as the substrate. WC twice weekly. 

Baby brine shrimp are the easiest live food. You don't need to start with a coop ziss artemia blender, just get a SF bay brine shrimp adapter for a 1-2 liter drinks bottle, it comes with airline and a clip to stop the flow and you can buy coop or other brand shrimp eggs and off you go.

@Odd Duckthanks for the above. I will PM you about some of the cultures you have!

[Jennifer V]

@Torrey that looks simple enough. What bio balls do you use? I don't really know what those are but I looked it up and it seems there are several kinds. How to you introduce the scuds? Did you let the container get good and funky before you added them? This is way above my pay grade but I'm excited to learn!