5 gal tall pea puffer tank

[JS Fish]

One of my teachers at my school is leaving and is looking for someone to take in her animals and tanks.

She gave me this 5 gal tall aquarium in great condition!

I'm hoping to put wood, rock, sand, and vallisneria for decoration.

For stocking, I'm thinking a type of snail(I'm not good with snails, please suggestions if you have any) and pea puffers.

Edited March 13 by JS Fish

[Tlindsey]

On 3/12/2024 at 8:02 PM, JS Fish said:

One of my teachers at my school is leaving and is looking for someone to take in her animals and tanks.

She gave me this 5 gal tall aquarium in great condition!

I'm hoping to put wood, rock, sand, and vallisneria for decoration.

For stocking, I'm thinking a type of snail(I'm not good with snails, please suggestions if you have any) and pea puffers.

I know the pea puffer will eat small snails. @JS Fish

[JS Fish]

On 3/12/2024 at 8:13 PM, Tlindsey said:

I know the pea puffer will eat small snails. @JS Fish

I was thinking of a smaller snail the breeds fast if there is one

Do you know of any snails that are good algae eaters and stay under an inch?

[Tlindsey]

On 3/12/2024 at 8:15 PM, JS Fish said:

I was thinking of a smaller snail the breeds fast if there is one

Do you know of any snails that are good algae eaters and stay under an inch?

Sorry for the late reply. Bladder snails are small and breed fast.

[JS Fish]

On 3/12/2024 at 10:31 PM, Tlindsey said:

Sorry for the late reply. Bladder snails are small and breed fast.

No problem, thanks, I'll look into them!

Edited March 13 by JS Fish

[MattyM]

Ramshorns are pretty prolific too and are good cleaners in my experience. In my tanks they out compete the bladders. 

[JS Fish]

On 3/13/2024 at 11:27 AM, MattyM said:

Ramshorns are pretty prolific too and are good cleaners in my experience. In my tanks they out compete the bladders. 

Thanks, I'll do research on both!

[Odd Duck]

Do you have any other live foods planned for your pea puffers besides snails?  Most will not take dry prepared foods at all but some will take frozen, meaty foods like bloodworms.  Most do better with live foods like scuds, whiteworms, blackworms, Grindal worms, Daphnia, etc, in addition to the bladder snails, ramshorn snails, or MTS.  Some will even pick at mystery snails enough to eventually kill them.  Most will take live brine shrimp - adult or fresh hatched.

Most are unfortunately still wild caught and can have significant parasite loads and need deworming. Plus 5 gallons is very small for a shoal. Most are sold as juveniles and they can be extremely hard to tell the sex in juvies. If you end up with too many males the dominant male will often kill the non-dominant males.  Dominant males will even kill females.

They are definitely not what I would consider a beginner fish so be aware they can be quite challenging to keep healthy.  There are multiple posts about them on the forum so you might want to do some reading here before you settle on pea puffers. 

[JS Fish]

On 3/14/2024 at 2:29 PM, Odd Duck said:

Do you have any other live foods planned for your pea puffers besides snails?  Most will not take dry prepared foods at all but some will take frozen, meaty foods like bloodworms.  Most do better with live foods like scuds, whiteworms, blackworms, Grindal worms, Daphnia, etc, in addition to the bladder snails, ramshorn snails, or MTS.  Some will even pick at mystery snails enough to eventually kill them.  Most will take live brine shrimp - adult or fresh hatched.

Most are unfortunately still wild caught and can have significant parasite loads and need deworming. Plus 5 gallons is very small for a shoal. Most are sold as juveniles and they can be extremely hard to tell the sex in juvies. If you end up with too many males the dominant male will often kill the non-dominant males.  Dominant males will even kill females.

They are definitely not what I would consider a beginner fish so be aware they can be quite challenging to keep healthy.  There are multiple posts about them on the forum so you might want to do some reading here before you settle on pea puffers. 

Thanks, I'm planning snail, frozen brine shrimp, and frozen blood worms for food.

I'm just going to get one pea puffer.

I've been keeping fish for a while and I've finally gotten enough experience to keep more difficult species.

I do appreciate the heads up though!

[JS Fish]

Update for this tank, I have gone through a fast roller coaster ride with it recently full of unexpected surprises.

To start, none of my local pet store have had pea puffers in stock. While I was waiting, I caught a small large mouth bass. I decided to keep him in this tank instead and named him Boomy.

After a while, I was having problems with him feeding. He refused frozen and freeze dried foods and the local pet stores didn't often have small enough feeder shrimp or feeder guppiez that he could eat. Since he was getting very skinny, I decided to let him go back where I found him.

Funny enough, one feeder guppy and two feeder shrimp he didn't eat were left behind and are currently living in the tank. The shrimp are keeping things clean and the guppy turned out to be pregnant and gave birth. I now have about a dozen baby guppies I'm currently raising. They are the first fish fry I've ever raised so I'm excited to see how it goes.

I'm planning to soon set up another journal covering the past and present of this tank in detail. If your interested in following this tank, I will post in here when I set up the new journal.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a joyful day!