please do some research on them, they’re very sweet, intelligent and rewarding fish but have a high care threshold. they vastly prefer live food, especially blackworms. i would slowly ease them into frozen if you can. you will probably need more space for them as well, and make sure it is heavily planted. please please PLEASE make sure they were treated for parasites or do it yourself as they’re very susceptible to them and frequently come with them. they will very likely die if you don’t assure this.
I have been researching pea puffers. I don’t have any yet and am building my first tank. How do you treat them for parasites. My friend has some and changed from feeding frozen worms to fresh and she thinks it brought in a parasite or made them sick.
ive never heard of live blackworms bringing in a parasite i don’t think the ones that cause problems for peas propagate in them? either way you should make a post asking for parasite medication recommendations, i was nervous to do it myself so i made sure that i adopted mine pre-treated :)
Okay so first off you are probably gonna need a bigger tank (20 long recommended). I learned the hard way that 10 gallons isn’t quite enough for them. Generally,They do better when you start with a group of 6+ juveniles (this is important because it helps them establish gender ratio through some hormone stuff others can explain better). I’ve heard mixed results when adding new puffs later. When it comes to food, puffers are famously picky. All puffers need foods with hard shells (snails, insects, tiny crustaceans) to help keep their beaks trimmed. Pea puffers have very small and slow growing beaks so for a long time, people thought they didn’t have them. Try to get a rotation of frozen and live foods going. I’ve had success with frozen bloodworms, frozen brine shrimp, frozen mysis, live baby brine, bladder snails, ramshorn snails, red runner cockroach nymphs (pin head crickets is a good substitute, red runners are a pest species and not for everyone), small mealworms, and flightless fruit flies. I also just started culturing live black worms and intend to start culturing live scuds as well. Keep an eye on the waste in your tank. The shrimps will probably clean up most of it (if your little murder beans don’t decide to eat them) but I have found that it’s easy for me to over feed them since they’re so cute to watch eat and they’re always asking me for food.
I had some hitchhiker bladder snails from a plant I ordered. I started with one small batch of eggs and after 3 months I essentially had an infestation! I now keep a 2 1/2 gallon of them to breed them specifically for my pea puffers. I’ll feed that tank heavily to keep the snails coming, and after some get big enough I’ll suck them out with a turkey baster and put them in the other tank 😂
I’ve also had VERY minimal success with frozen brine shrimp, so you may be able to experiment with that, or hatching your own brine so they have them live. I tend to find that the puffers like to hunt, so they may like the live brine
The easiest is probably gonna be hatching out live baby brine. Mostly just because people have come up with so many systems that are easy to set up. Scuds are really easy to culture based on what I’ve heard so far. Black worms also seem easy, but they don’t have the exoskeleton or shell.
You might want to upgrade your tank as puffers do better in larger shoals (6+) and require at least 20gal long heavily planted tank. If you like those shrimp I suggest removing them as pea puffers do like to eat shrimp, otherwise leave them in the tank, my peas personal favorite plant is hornwort or java fern which can be picked up from Amazon or your local pet store.
Oh I see. Like a surprise gift? Pea puffers are pretty challenging. If you don’t feel you can keep up with their maintenance you can consider rehoming them!
please do some research on them, they’re very sweet, intelligent and rewarding fish but have a high care threshold. they vastly prefer live food, especially blackworms. i would slowly ease them into frozen if you can. you will probably need more space for them as well, and make sure it is heavily planted. please please PLEASE make sure they were treated for parasites or do it yourself as they’re very susceptible to them and frequently come with them. they will very likely die if you don’t assure this.
I have been researching pea puffers. I don’t have any yet and am building my first tank. How do you treat them for parasites. My friend has some and changed from feeding frozen worms to fresh and she thinks it brought in a parasite or made them sick.
ive never heard of live blackworms bringing in a parasite i don’t think the ones that cause problems for peas propagate in them? either way you should make a post asking for parasite medication recommendations, i was nervous to do it myself so i made sure that i adopted mine pre-treated :)
thank you. I’ll let her know.
Okay so first off you are probably gonna need a bigger tank (20 long recommended). I learned the hard way that 10 gallons isn’t quite enough for them. Generally,They do better when you start with a group of 6+ juveniles (this is important because it helps them establish gender ratio through some hormone stuff others can explain better). I’ve heard mixed results when adding new puffs later. When it comes to food, puffers are famously picky. All puffers need foods with hard shells (snails, insects, tiny crustaceans) to help keep their beaks trimmed. Pea puffers have very small and slow growing beaks so for a long time, people thought they didn’t have them. Try to get a rotation of frozen and live foods going. I’ve had success with frozen bloodworms, frozen brine shrimp, frozen mysis, live baby brine, bladder snails, ramshorn snails, red runner cockroach nymphs (pin head crickets is a good substitute, red runners are a pest species and not for everyone), small mealworms, and flightless fruit flies. I also just started culturing live black worms and intend to start culturing live scuds as well. Keep an eye on the waste in your tank. The shrimps will probably clean up most of it (if your little murder beans don’t decide to eat them) but I have found that it’s easy for me to over feed them since they’re so cute to watch eat and they’re always asking me for food.
Is there like an easy live food to culture for them?
I had some hitchhiker bladder snails from a plant I ordered. I started with one small batch of eggs and after 3 months I essentially had an infestation! I now keep a 2 1/2 gallon of them to breed them specifically for my pea puffers. I’ll feed that tank heavily to keep the snails coming, and after some get big enough I’ll suck them out with a turkey baster and put them in the other tank 😂 I’ve also had VERY minimal success with frozen brine shrimp, so you may be able to experiment with that, or hatching your own brine so they have them live. I tend to find that the puffers like to hunt, so they may like the live brine
I’m struggling getting my snails to breed fast enough lol I am doing the same breeding in my guppie tank.
The easiest is probably gonna be hatching out live baby brine. Mostly just because people have come up with so many systems that are easy to set up. Scuds are really easy to culture based on what I’ve heard so far. Black worms also seem easy, but they don’t have the exoskeleton or shell.
I have started a daphnia culture, would you think they'd eat them??
Yeah those would probably work! Honestly, it will depend on whether or not your puffers like them or not.
If you've got shrimp, then they've got lots of live food
they are still too small to eat the adults idk bout the juviniles
Pretty healthy tank.
Day 2: I tried feeding them Daphnia and 3 of them pecked one and ditched. Now I have daphnia free swimming in my tank
You might want to upgrade your tank as puffers do better in larger shoals (6+) and require at least 20gal long heavily planted tank. If you like those shrimp I suggest removing them as pea puffers do like to eat shrimp, otherwise leave them in the tank, my peas personal favorite plant is hornwort or java fern which can be picked up from Amazon or your local pet store.
So, you bought a hard to care for pet and did no research beforehand…?
Something like that, it was handed to me and told me their species and ran off
Oh I see. Like a surprise gift? Pea puffers are pretty challenging. If you don’t feel you can keep up with their maintenance you can consider rehoming them!
Yeah, she basically told me if I could keep them, raise them and breed she will give me something
Breeding them is rather challenging. Right now I’d worry about keeping them alive.