Pea puffers in shrimp/cpd tank?

[Yade Yavis]

Hi all! New to the fish keeping hobby as of this year, I have a 20 tall stocked with a carbon rili neocaridina breeding colony, 10 cpds(8 purchased adults with 2 middle age fry that hatched in my tank), and unfortunately, a MASSIVE infestation of ramshorn snails. I had been under the impression that pea puffers would happily eat my shrimp/lets, but now after reading more on the forums here, I'm not so sure??? Could I get a few pea puffers to replace my cpds? Also, I have a small tank(maybe a 2.5?) that is kind of my culling tank(I have a stand for a much larger tank but need a tank for it and plan on adding my muddled shrimp culls as the clean up crew as well as others), I recently acquired a pair of scarlet badis but they were not too happy with my cpds so I put them in the smaller tank for now. I have too many males in my cpd school and am trying to decide on a few different options: get a few more females and commit the tank to be a breeding tank for carbon rilis and cpds? Trade the cpds to my local fish store and get a school of pea puffers? Take the cpds and trade them for more scarlet badis? Take the scarlet badis back or keep them for when the bigger tank is ready(I really really like these guys)? Oh gosh, help lol.

[johnnyxxl]

Normally bigger fish eat smaller fish.  So your pufferfish will probably eat the shrimp if it's hungry enough.  This is more likely because pufferfish are hunters.  There are always exceptions but my inclination errs on shrimp will be snacks.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

I’ve had Pea Puffers for a couple years now. 6 in a 29. 
 

They leave some shrimp alone. They demolish others. Depends on how densely planted your tank is. Rest assured they will hunt any shrimplets they find.  I have a *couple* extra blue shrimp and that’s with a tank I could barely see into it was so densely planted. The few adult shrimps are just fine. 
 

I’m considering adding like 10 Amano’s to their tank as I think they’ll be fine. I’ve also added Nerites and those are still cruising. Ramshorn Snails are their favorite snack. 
 

Personally, I would remove the CPD’s if you’re adding the Pea’s. Simply wouldn’t chance it. 

[mynameisnobody]

PP’s with anything is a gamble.

[Odd Duck]

Pea puffers are a roll of the dice on personality.  I’ve read about peas that will go on a rampage when added to a tank and kill loads of snails or shrimp.  I’ve also heard of peas that leave adult shrimp alone.  Most will hunt and eat shrimplets very happily.  If you want them as a way of preventing much shrimp reproduction in a cull shrimp tank, then yes, try them out.  But be aware, that many pea puffers will not take frozen food and very rarely will they take dried food (almost never).  So getting pea puffers is a commitment to keeping live foods available at all times or risk losing some or all of them.

If you search the forum there are dozens of posts about pea puffers.  I have elected to let my last pea puffer pass in her own time (she’s geriatric now) and not get more.  They are a lot of work to keep live cultures going at all times.  You’ll need more than just snails, especially MTS.  They don’t like MTS nearly as much as ramshorns, bladder snails, shrimplets, other live foods.  I’ll post a list of various live foods with sizes.  Peas don’t necessarily like really tiny foods, but if your peas end up breeding like mine did, you’ll need to have some smaller foods available for the fry.

I haven’t tried all of these foods but I’ve tried most of them with varying degrees of success in culturing.  I’ve cultured and fed all the worms except banana worms and Walter worms.  I haven’t deliberately cultured infusoria but my tanks are old enough there’s always some present.  I’ve never deliberately cultured mosquito larvae but I’ve had some show up in snail culture tanks that had no fish and I’ve fed the larvae to pea puffers who gladly ate them.  I’ve not fed live adult brine shrimp but they somewhat reluctantly eat frozen.  I’ve never tried fairy shrimp but I suspect they would eat them happily.  The only food they flat out rejected were the wingless fruit flies.  Those were regarded with utter disdain, even when I wet the flies so they sank slowly.  They just watched them sink.  They readily ate everything else on the list.

I probably should add info about snails to the list but they will eat nearly any species of snail eventually.  They will even pick away at the foot of large mystery snails to the point where the snail will give up and stop trying to eat or move around.  They do prefer snails with softer shells like bladder snails and ramshorns.  They will eat nerites that fall on their backs.  Horned nerites did best with pea puffers for longevity but some will harass them.  Marble limpets (another variety of nerite) also did fairly well but they are goners if the pea gets them off the glass and onto their back.

 

Live Fish Food Sizes

Worms: Sizes by length x width (binomial), survival time in freshwater.

Vinegar eels - 1-2 mm x 0.005 mm (Turbatrix aceti), up to 7 days, possibly more.
Banana worms - 1.5 mm x 0.004 mm (Pangrellus nepenthicola), over 12 hours.
Walter worms - 1-3 mm x 0.005-0.01 mm (Panagrellus silusioides), over 12 hours.
Microworms - 2-3 mm x 0.005-0.007 mm (2 sp. - Pangrellus redivivus and Anguillula silusiae), over 12 hours.
Grindal worms - 10 mm x 0.5 mm (Enchytraeus buchholzi), several days.
Whiteworms - 2-4 cm x 1 mm (Enchytraeus albidus), several days.
Blackworms - 2.5-4 cm (up to 10 cm) x 1.5 mm (Lumbriculus variegatus), indefinitely.

Other Live Foods:
Infusoria - 0.005-0.5 mm (multiple different organisms), indefinitely for the overall culture, days for individual organisms.
Baby brine shrimp - 0.4-0.5 mm x 0.15 mm (Artemis sp. - in US is A. franciscana), 30 minutes or so.
Adult brine shrimp - 8-20 mm x 4 mm (Artemis sp), 30 minutes or so.
Fairy shrimp - 6-25 mm (multiple species - like a freshwater brine shrimp), lifespan - 1-8 weeks.
Daphnia - 0.2-5 mm (multiple species), life span -10-30 days.
Moina - 0.7-1.4 mm (multiple species), lifespan - 3-6 weeks.
Scuds/amphipods - 1-8 mm (multiple species, some up to 3 cm), lifespan - up to 1 year depending on species.
Fruit flies - 1.5-3 mm (multiple species and strains), can walk/float on water and will escape if not eaten or drowned. Live 8-15 days but obviously not in the water.
Mosquito larvae - 3-12 mm (multiple species), 4-14 days before becoming adult mosquitos and leaving the water. 

[Solstice_Lacer]

Have you considered an assassin snail or two? They will keep ramshorns in check but I've never seen them bother a shrimp.

[Biotope Biologist]

Badis in my experience are incredibly shy I kept mine in a species only tank with snails and random bugs for them to hunt.

 

Even CPD are likely too active for badis. I would eventually move them to their own 10 gallon or similar size. Potential tank mates would have to be less active or shrimp. 
 

As for pea puffs they are intelligent social creatures as such every experience will be slightly different and it would be a roll of the dice as to whether you got angry murder beans or harmless mollusk hunters

[FishFan]

How do you feel about bettas? I have had a very successful tank (same stocking) but with a betta fish. If you got to you LFS or even some Petcos you can get a female that lives in a community at the store. It depends on the fish of course, but in my experience it has worked out. Also, I understand if you are locked onto pea puffers. Just a suggestion.