Bumblebee Puffer

[Moe]

I'm considering a 10G puffer tank. My LFS has two different kinds of puffers. One is labeled bumblebee puffer and it is about 2 inches in length the other dwarf puffer it is one of the smallest fish I've ever seen, hard to find in the tank about the size of a pea. They could possibly be babies I don't know. I looked at some of the links that were posted which said that these may be the same fish. I don't really know anything about puffers so... Is the bumblebee puffer a dwarf puffer? How many bumblebee puffers can you put in a 10G? The one labeled just dwarf puffer does this fish stay that small?

 

[Pufferpack]

Hi Moe

The Dwarf puffers are probably still babies, when I got mine they were labled "Pea puffers" and were the tiniest little guys I ever saw (within the first week they killed 3 fish), but now that they are full grown they are a whopping 1 inch long (the biggest one is) but they are still the cutest most personable fish I care for. As for the "Bumblebee" puffers they are probably Colomesus asellus - South American Puffers (the middle pic in my signature is a S/A after eating) . If they are S/A's they grow to about 3 - 4 inches, and are probably the most even tempered of all puffers, they are a cute active puffer but are a bit more maintainence because they have the quickest tooth growth in the family and if not continuously fed "Crunchy" foods they will need to be trimmed once in a while.
Check with the lfs to make sure they are not Colomesus psittacus - Parrot puffer, they look similar but grow to about 10 inches and live in high BW to full marine.
In a 10 gal you could comfortably house 4 Dwarfs or 3 S/A's (with a little extra filtration and frequent water changes) as well as a couple BBG's or Ottos for a clean up crew.

 

[Moe]

The ones at LFS look exactly like the middle pic in your sig. I will double check the scientific names, but LFS said they stay pretty small. He is a pretty good guy has never steered me wrong yet. He is trying to talk me out of puffers. He says they are all too aggressive to keep. But I think I want to try it. Could I put 3 bumblebee puffers and 3 bumblebee goby in a 10G? Can you keep the S/A and the dwarf puffer in the same tank? I plan on mega filtration I was looking at either the Penguin bio-wheel. It has 125gph flow rate or the aquaclear 150 it has 150hph flow rate. Do you have a preference? or is there a better filter?

 

[Pufferpack]

They are probably S/A's (I don't think the Parrot puffer is seen in lfs much), sounds like you found a good lfs. I have had some success mixing Dwarfs and S/A's in a 35 gal tank, but it has only been about a year, so the jury is still out. Whenever attempting to house multiple species of puffers I would recomend having a back up tank handy to do some relocating in case of an emergency, but IMO the Dwarfs/SA's/BBG's/Ottos combo make for a nice balance in the tank (size permitting) and they all seem to get along Ok.
For the 10 gal you could house all 6 fish nicely but I would be wary of mixing any Dwarfs into the limited space as they are more territorial than the SA's and would probably cause trouble.
For filters I use Aquaclears, but I have heard good things about the Penguin Bio-wheels. Both are more than enough for a 10 gal, as long as there is a good flow rate I think it is a matter pf personal preference, for me it was just that the Aquaclears were more readly available when I started setting up tanks and I stuck with them.

HTH
Don.

 

[Moe]

Pufferback - I just read your pinned post about trimming puffer beaks. I'm not sure I could do it. If I just go with dwarfs and I feed them ghost shrimps and snails regularly do you think I will ever have to trim their beaks? My LFS always has ghost shrimp and I have a large supply of ramshorn snails. How exactly do you know when it's time to trim their beaks? Thanks for your help.

 

[Lithril]

The snails should do the trick as long as they've got a supply, I've also heard of people putting a soft rock in their for them to grind them down on.

 

[Pufferpack]

No worries Moe, Dwarfs teeth don't grow as quick as the South Americans so a diet suplimented with pond snails once a week is more than enough to keep their teeth in check (Ramshorns may be too big for the Dwarfs, pond snails work well). The South Americans (Colomesus asellus) are the worst for tooth growth and sometimes need trimming even with a steady diet of just snails.
The teeth don't need to be trimmed until they have grown long enough to hamper the puffer being able to eat, at this point the teeth will have grown so long that the fish can't shut it's mouth and all you can see is buck teeth when you look at their face. Food will either consistantly get stuck in the teeth or the fish will not be able to pick up the food because they can't open up far enough.