New Pea puffers

[Joecruel]

So I got an Aqua Huna shipment about a week ago “ 6 pea puffers” they have been thru the trio in a 10 gallon heavily planted tank together.  Pretty sure their doing fine but it takes an hour in front of the tank to get tabs on them .  I have 15 gallons arriving tomorrow.  I of course plan to cycle the tanks .  Is there an easy way to sex them ?  I plan to put 3 in each 15 gallon , should be okay ?   A few Kuhl is in with them now ... limited aggression so far .  Mainly giving them brine shrimp every other day  but I have been dropping small pond snails in there daily also.  Have a worm cone on its way for blood worms ... I should prob deworm then while cycling their tanks ?  Any other advice would mind obviously if I could get them to breed . 

[FrozenFins]

Cory reccemonds deworming all pufferfish because they are pretty much all wild caught. As far as sexing them, males have more yellow on the body, especially on their stomach. It may take awhile before you can properly sex them just because of how young they may be. 

Edited November 27, 2020 by James Black

[aquachris]

I deworm all puffers as @James Black mentioned @Cory recommends, unless I'm 100% sure they are captive bred (this is still new but is happening).

I also would recommend getting a 20 gallon long and have all 6 together.  My experience with pea puffers has been they do better in a shoal of 6.  Needs to be heavily planted of course, but they will group up.  I've had experience with them in smaller groups and these larger groups, and they do much better imo in the larger group of 6.

Also sexing will probably take a while.  Another thing to watch for is the males will sometimes get little "wrinkles" behind their eyes.

Edited November 27, 2020 by aquachris

[Fish Folk]

These little guys are awesome fish! Mark's Aquatics has a nice video series on breeding them if you're interested. They do like snails. Also they like mosquito larva. We found that ours turned their noses up against dry fish food . . . so they can be a bit picky, definitely preferring live foods. Sounds like you're an awesome fish keeper!

Here's two photos showing differentiation between male and female. In general, males are yellower, and females tend to have more contrast between the dark spots and light body coloration. There are little shiny marks on the male cheeks that the female doesn't have, as well as a stripe down the belly that is more defined on the male than the female.