Care tips for pea puffers?

[clownbaby]

Howdy! I was gifted a 10 gallon tank last month. Right now, I am using it for a quarantine tank. But, once that is over, I will have a ten gallon aquarium... I wanted to have African Dwarf Frogs, but they're illegal in my state (invasive species). So, after doing some research, I decided a pea puffer would be a fun fish!

But, I wanted to ask for some care tips. I am doing research and thought personal experience would help a bit.

Here are some questions, but feel free to provide as much advice as you would like, even if it is unrelated to these questions!

Most of this I have researched, but science and personal experience isn't always the same; both are helpful!

1. Should they be kept in a group, or by themselves? Some sources say one is fine, others say one male and two females for a 10 gallon is preferrable. However, since I am new to this hobby, I try to avoid risky or borderline stocking because I don't want to make mistakes.
2. What are easy live foods I can culture? I already culture pot-worms (aka grindal worms) and have quite a stable population of bladder snails to feed, but what else is easy? I have aquarium salt, so I will probably set up a brine shrimp hatchery for both the puffers and my main tank soon. But what else? Is culturing daphnia easy? Mosquito larvae? 
3. Do they like to burrow? I have been doing some research on their natural habitat and it seems that typically the substrate is silty clay and leaf litter. Would sand also be okay in addition to this?
4. Do they jump? 
5. Do they like caves as hiding places? I want to experiment with a 3d backdrop and thought this might be fun, and it would be easy to add a cave or two while I do that.
6. How fast can the flow be? I know their natural habitat is slow / stagnant water, so how intense can the flow be?
7. Do they prefer blackwater / water with tannins, or clear fresher water? Or does it matter?
8. How big are they? I know this is a silly question... but maybe compare them to another common fish. I have never seen them in person and videos are throwing me off. Are they bigger, smaller, or about the same size as a betta fish? 
9. ... and anything else you think is important to know!

[GuppyLover123]

Hi! Sorry, I won't be much help - I don't have any pea pufferfish but I've always wanted some! I was just wondering if I could see photos? They are so cute! ❤️ 🙂 

[clownbaby]

On 5/21/2024 at 2:53 PM, GuppyLover123 said:

Hi! Sorry, I won't be much help - I don't have any pea pufferfish but I've always wanted some! I was just wondering if I could see photos? They are so cute! ❤️ 🙂 

Ah, I do not have any pea puffers yet, nor have I set up their tank as it is holding some pygmy cories right now in quarantine. If you'd like, here is the scape of my main tank (featuring my beloved Leroy!)

[EricksonAquatics]

I haven’t kept them myself, but I got super close to keeping them at one point. From my research and from talking to several people, here are just a few general things I’ve learned:

- A good population of snails is a must. Make sure your snail population is plentiful and established before bringing home your puffers.

- If you want to keep more than one, make sure your tank is heavily planted! If your tank is sparsely planted, you’ll have a battleground of peas trying to establish their territories at all times. But it definitely can be done!

- From what I’ve heard, it’s pretty hard to train them to eat Vibra Bites or any other prepared food. So if you plan on doing that, plan on a lot of patience because they are a lot smarter than people think.😂They won’t be fooled!

- Pea puffer tanks require more maintenance since no snails will, erm, be allowed to clean. #they’llbesnacks

But @AllFishNoBrakes has had good luck with Nerites (he also has a pea puffer tank and can likely offer more advice).

You’ve probably learned all these things already if you’ve done a decent amount of research, but from talking to people in my local club I can confirm them 🙂

Good luck!

 

[GuppyLover123]

Oops! Sorry, I was so excited when I saw something about having/getting pea pufferfish and I got excited haha! Keep me updated getting them though! 😄❤️ 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Ya, I have a tank of murder beans. Here we go:

1. I have 6 in a 29. In a 10, I’d do one. Or maybe start with 2 and see if you get lucky. 
2. Mine get bloodworms and snails. Snails are the only “live culture” I have. 
3. I’ve never seen mine burrow 

4. I’ve never seen mine jump. All my tanks have lids. 
5. My tank is scaped and heavily planted. No caves. I’m sure they would explore it if I gave them one, though. 
6. I have a sponge with easy flow kit, and an internal filter for the CO2. 
7. I’m sure Blackwater would be fine, but mine is just straight fresh with no botinicals. I already have 2 other Blackwater tanks, and don’t want to maintain a third. 
8. They are small. Smaller freshwater puffer in the world. About 1.25” full grown. 
9. Don’t overthink it. I was super nervous about getting them before I did. Now having them for a couple years they’re mostly like any other fish. Bloodworms are easy for me as I use 1 cube per day and split it between like 5 different tank. Snails are good snacks. My Pea Puffer tank requires the most manual cleaning as snails are snacks, but the Nerites in that tank have helped, as well as the plants being as dense as they are now. 
 

Here’s the most recent pic of my Pea Puffer tank:

[Odd Duck]

There are loads of threads about pea puffers and their care including a couple of mine. I’ve changed the name in the link for my adventures with Bad Pea Daddy, who grew into the biggest pea puffer I’ve ever seen and who yeeted himself out of 2 different tanks and one HOB breeder box.

I had him in one tank (his first with me had fairly fine gravel) that didn’t have a sand bottom, had peas in a quarantine tank that was bare bottom, and had everybody in sand bottom tanks after that.

With that many peas (10 all together) I had ramhorns in multiple tanks, bladders in multiple, and MTS only in the 29 G tank to try to keep up with them.  I also cultured Grindal worms, whiteworms, blackworms, scuds (which they love), and bought Daphnia multiple times trying to keep a culture going but have never been able to manage one long term - about 6 months is all I’ve ever managed to sustain a Daphnia culture.  🤷🏻‍♀️

Mine did NOT like wingless fruit flies and once the fry were past tiny they didn’t eat vinegar eels or microworms. Tetras larger than the older fry / very young juvenile peas will eat both vinegar eels and microworms so I tried those multiple times but they would apparently rather struggle slightly with Grindal worms than eat the micros or eels. 🤦🏻‍♀️

They are very messy eaters so they need regular and frequent tank cleaning to do well. I definitely do NOT consider than a beginner fish since they pretty much require live food cultures and don’t tend to do as well without multiple species of live foods available.

None of mine ever even considered any dried foods. Even if they adore live Daphnia they would watch, but not eat, freeze-dried Daphnia. Some of them (not all) would take a few frozen Daphnia.  All would intermittently but not reliably take frozen bloodworms or frozen brine shrimp.

ALL would 100% rather have live foods and ate live Daphnia, any worms Grindal size or larger, scuds, snails (especially bladders and rams), and baby brine shrimp with gusto.  Oh, and mosquito larvae.  I never cultured them deliberately since I am fairly allergic to mosquito bites, but I did find a few in the snail culture tanks a time or 2 before I started throwing a few male guppies in the snail tanks.  The mosquito larvae were quickly devoured when I put them in the pea puffer tanks.  Look at the “6 G Buce” and the 29 G Pea Puffer” links below in my sig.

Edited May 22 by Odd Duck
Correct name of link.

[clownbaby]

On 5/22/2024 at 7:05 AM, Odd Duck said:

There are loads of threads about pea puffers and their care including a couple of mine. I’ve changed the name in the link for my adventures with Bad Pea Daddy, who grew into the biggest pea puffer I’ve ever seen and who yeeted himself out of 2 different tanks and one HOB breeder box.

I had him in one tank (his first with me had fairly fine gravel) that didn’t have a sand bottom, had peas in a quarantine tank that was bare bottom, and had everybody in sand bottom tanks after that.

With that many peas (10 all together) I had ramhorns in multiple tanks, bladders in multiple, and MTS only in the 29 G tank to try to keep up with them.  I also cultured Grindal worms, whiteworms, blackworms, scuds (which they love), and bought Daphnia multiple times trying to keep a culture going but have never been able to manage one long term - about 6 months is all I’ve ever managed to sustain a Daphnia culture.  🤷🏻‍♀️

Mine did NOT like wingless fruit flies and once the fry were past tiny they didn’t eat vinegar eels or microworms. Tetras larger than the older fry / very young juvenile peas will eat both vinegar eels and microworms so I tried those multiple times but they would apparently rather struggle slightly with Grindal worms than eat the micros or eels. 🤦🏻‍♀️

They are very messy eaters so they need regular and frequent tank cleaning to do well. I definitely do NOT consider than a beginner fish since they pretty much require live food cultures and don’t tend to do as well without multiple species of live foods available.

None of mine ever even considered any dried foods. Even if they adore live Daphnia they would watch, but not eat, freeze-dried Daphnia. Some of them (not all) would take a few frozen Daphnia.  All would intermittently but not reliably take frozen bloodworms or frozen brine shrimp.

ALL would 100% rather have live foods and ate live Daphnia, any worms Grindal size or larger, scuds, snails (especially bladders and rams), and baby brine shrimp with gusto.  Oh, and mosquito larvae.  I never cultured them deliberately since I am fairly allergic to mosquito bites, but I did find a few in the snail culture tanks a time or 2 before I started throwing a few male guppies in the snail tanks.  The mosquito larvae were quickly devoured when I put them in the pea puffer tanks.  Look at the “6 G Buce” and the 29 G Pea Puffer” links below in my sig.

Awesome, thank you so much!!! Yes, I have started to culture scuds simply because it is so easy, but it is great to know that they actually love them too! I have sooooo many bladder snails in my 30gal haha. Grindal worms are on hand (I culture them for my compost bin) and I could easily culture bloodworms, I love midges anyway and wouldn't mind having some for pets. I also do have some other insect larvae on hand, right now I am setting up a breeding project for golden stoneflies. They are very pretty animals and I could feed the smaller larvae to them.

I know they're not a starter fish but I want to try! I love insects. Bugs are so cool so I like to randomly breed different bugs and keep them as "pets" (aka study them for two days, then put them back). So culturing aquatic insects & microfauna would be soooo fun! 

[Jeff]

Here's a good blog article from Aquarium Co-Op. I hope it helps

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/pea-puffer

 

[DallasCowboys16]

I kept 3 Pea Puffers in a 5.5 gallon Fluval Spec back in the day and I learned a few things.

#1) Feeding - they never even looked at any dry foods so I don’t really even consider it worth trying. I always kept a steady supply of bladder and pond snails going into the tank which the puffers would hunt regularly. They would also go after Malaysian trumped snails, but couldn’t really eat them because of their trap doors. In addition to the snails, I fed frozen blood worms daily individually with a pipette to prevent excess waste. Frozen brine was also accepted and I would throw love brine in the tank once a week which they would devour pretty rapidly. Pea Puffers are prone to wasting, especially when you first get them, so try to keep food available to them as much as possible.

#2) Deworm your puffers - Pea Puffers, and most wild caught puffer species in general, are almost always ridden with internal parasites that cause wasting long term even if they seem helpful to begin with. Hitting them with several rounds of Prazi Pro or the med trio is advisable for long term success.

#3) Aggression - Pea Puffers can be pretty nasty to each other at times, so make sure you’ve got your tank pretty densely planted if you plan on keeping a number of them together. I was able to have success in such a small tank with multiple puffers because I had lots of line of sight breaks and hiding places for the fish to get away from each other.

Past that, they’re pretty similar to many of the other fish we keep. Good luck with yours. I really enjoyed keeping them while I did.

[Lennie]

I have 11 in a 15g tank. In my experience, they are fairly peaceful. I have 8 females 3 males if I am not mistaken.

I got mine tankbred, so I did not need to deworm too. 

The issue is, you need to have cultures going on to feed them properly as they need to be fed various live and/or frozen(if accepted) foods. I also had a F8 puffer for some time. Live feeding is not my thing. Yes, fish love all those earthworms, whiteworms, artemia, etc. but it was bothering me. Therefore lesson learned, live food required fish are not for me really. I prepered a tank with pest snails settled in before I got my fish. LAter on I realised they even sometimes don't kill but just bite their antenna or body parts and let them live this way. It was reaaaaally bothering. I moved them to a new snail free tank after some time.

Other than that, I fed them different type of worms, live daphnia and live bbs.

 

I would question if you are okay with keeping cultures and feeding various live foods to another animal. It is not everybody's thing. It is not my thing I realised.

 

Also they are schooling fish naturally. I saw some peeps mentioning keeping them in lower numbers above. Without a proper gender balance and group dynamic, it is very likely to fail and witness aggression issues. The lowest recommended group number is 6 as 2m:4f. 

 

Also,  they are probably easiest to find tank bred puffers, and also this makes you avoid getting C.imitator which can be mistakenly collected and sold together with actual pea puffers, and may cause potential problems or may be the reason why people categorise them as "aggressive"?

 

Also puffer forum has great guides. Here I am sharing it below:

https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/puffers-in-focus/dwarfpuffercare/ 

 

Another great guide: 

https://www.pufferfishenthusiastsworldwide.com/post/c-travancoricus

 

Edited May 25 by Lennie

[Lennie]

On 5/22/2024 at 1:03 AM, clownbaby said:

Ah, I do not have any pea puffers yet, nor have I set up their tank as it is holding some pygmy cories right now in quarantine. If you'd like, here is the scape of my main tank (featuring my beloved Leroy!)

Also they would destroy the mystery snail, at best the antennas. But mystery snails are shortlived so pea puffers can be a species only tank as a plan for the future ofcourse if you want them

On 5/22/2024 at 12:43 AM, clownbaby said:

Do they like caves as hiding places? I want to experiment with a 3d backdrop and thought this might be fun, and it would be easy to add a cave or two while I do that.

They love hiding. I provided the lots of pellia moss ( big ones) in many places, many rocks that form caves, etc. They love hiding around.

 

On 5/22/2024 at 12:43 AM, clownbaby said:

How fast can the flow be? I know their natural habitat is slow / stagnant water, so how intense can the flow be?

I would say slow flow. I used sponge filter myself.

 

On 5/22/2024 at 12:43 AM, clownbaby said:

How big are they? I know this is a silly question... but maybe compare them to another common fish. I have never seen them in person and videos are throwing me off. Are they bigger, smaller, or about the same size as a betta fish? 

Super tiny. I got mine at the size around 0,8cm.

 

On 5/22/2024 at 12:43 AM, clownbaby said:

Is culturing daphnia easy?

culturing daphnia sounds easy but in practice, I see people fail more often than succeed. That being said you can always try and see how it works for you

[clownbaby]

On 5/25/2024 at 6:09 AM, Lennie said:

Also they would destroy the mystery snail, at best the antennas. But mystery snails are shortlived so pea puffers can be a species only tank as a plan for the future ofcourse if you want them

They love hiding. I provided the lots of pellia moss ( big ones) in many places, many rocks that form caves, etc. They love hiding around.

 

I would say slow flow. I used sponge filter myself.

 

Super tiny. I got mine at the size around 0,8cm.

 

culturing daphnia sounds easy but in practice, I see people fail more often than succeed. That being said you can always try and see how it works for you

Oh do not worry!!! Leroy is staying in my main 30gal! The pea puffers would be in a separate ten gallon. I've seen clips of them eating stonefly larvae and full-grown ramshorns ... powerful predators for being so itty bitty!! Nature is crazy cool. even though Leroy is twice their size I would not want him to deal with the bullying, or potentially the injuries. He is already 6 months or so, I want him to have the best life possible. Plus I want the 10gal to be a species only biotope.

I should also note that this would be a few months out too. I want to feel happy with my 30gal before I start a new tank, and while I am getting more pleased with it and it's plants... I'm not quite ready to work on another tank. 

 

What is pellia moss? I have not heard of it. And awesome to hear about the caves! That will be a fun project for me. I was also hoping to use a sponge filter, good to know it would be what they prefer. 

And yes, it seems like daphnia like to be a pain to culture 😂 so I will just culture scuds and grindal worms instead. maybe blood worms and brine shrimp. Easy stuff haha

[clownbaby]

On 5/25/2024 at 6:01 AM, Lennie said:

I have 11 in a 15g tank. In my experience, they are fairly peaceful. I have 8 females 3 males if I am not mistaken.

I got mine tankbred, so I did not need to deworm too. 

The issue is, you need to have cultures going on to feed them properly as they need to be fed various live and/or frozen(if accepted) foods. I also had a F8 puffer for some time. Live feeding is not my thing. Yes, fish love all those earthworms, whiteworms, artemia, etc. but it was bothering me. Therefore lesson learned, live food required fish are not for me really. I prepered a tank with pest snails settled in before I got my fish. LAter on I realised they even sometimes don't kill but just bite their antenna or body parts and let them live this way. It was reaaaaally bothering. I moved them to a new snail free tank after some time.

Other than that, I fed them different type of worms, live daphnia and live bbs.

 

I would question if you are okay with keeping cultures and feeding various live foods to another animal. It is not everybody's thing. It is not my thing I realised.

 

Also they are schooling fish naturally. I saw some peeps mentioning keeping them in lower numbers above. Without a proper gender balance and group dynamic, it is very likely to fail and witness aggression issues. The lowest recommended group number is 6 as 2m:4f. 

 

Also,  they are probably easiest to find tank bred puffers, and also this makes you avoid getting C.imitator which can be mistakenly collected and sold together with actual pea puffers, and may cause potential problems or may be the reason why people categorise them as "aggressive"?

 

Also puffer forum has great guides. Here I am sharing it below:

https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/puffers-in-focus/dwarfpuffercare/ 

 

Another great guide: 

https://www.pufferfishenthusiastsworldwide.com/post/c-travancoricus

 

Yes, I feed my cories grindal worms and mosquito larvae as a live food. The first time I felt awful about it, but I have gotten more used to it and I just have to accept that nature is... well, brutal. I do think culturing larger animals (stoneflies, for example) will hurt my soul, as they are some of my favorite insects. I spend a lot of time with random research stuff, as I am a forestry intern and am going into forestry, and the more I witness predation the more I realize how important it is. 

At a local wetland preserve, me and some other interns were birding and we saw a female redwinged blackbird dive into some bushes and catch a very large moth. Instead of biting the moth to death and ending the suffering quickly, the bird proceeded to hold the moth by the wing and smack it repeatedly on a rock until it stopped moving. It took maybe ten minutes for the poor little moth to die. 

But then she took that moth to her nest, likely to feed her babies. Same with how I have seen birds catch treefrogs near my house. It is sad for the animal, but yet the world has evolved that way. It is such a conflicting thing for me - I am vegan and I love animals, but unlike other animals I have the choice not to eat meat / dairy / etc. Other animals need it to survive. I am happy that predators get food sources, yet sad for the prey. Bizarre conflictions.

So, in short, thank you for the warning about live foods. I don't think it should bother me that much. I have grown to enjoy watching animals display hunting and other predation behaviors. It will hurt my heart if they prolong the animal's death (like how the bird did with the moth.) Do they do that constantly with snails? I have a ready supply of bladder snails and mud snails, and while they have wayyy overpopulated my 30gal, I wouldn't want any of them to suffer in pain for too long.