Size of Dwarf Puffers

[finius]

It's me again. Setting up a 20 gallon long tank and was wondering what to put in it. I thought about one green spotted puffer or 5-6 dwarf puffers. I'd like to have more than one fish in the tank and was considering dwarf puffers. I was at petsmart yesterday and saw them. They were really funny going after fish about ten times their size, definitely entertaining to watch. The only problem is that they are so tiny, like the size of gravel. I don't want to have to put my head next to the glass every time I want to see them. I assume that they get bigger, but how big? Can you see them from across the room?

Also would you rather get 1 GSP or 6 dwarf puffers?

Thanks!

 

[diVer]

The dwarfs get up to about an inch long. I usually don't have any problem finding mine but sometimes they like to hide.

 

[Perky]

You could get 12 Dwarf Puffers in a 20 Gallon or 6 Dwarf puffers and 6 Bumblebee Gobies (FW variety). That would be nice or maybe a Arrowhead/Pignose Puffer for a 20 Gallon. They are FW and are quite vicious, I have heard of one that broke through one bag to another and killed the fish in their, this was while floating in a LFS to acclimatise to the temp, the man put them in one tank and was gonna split them up after they got used to the temp and he went to serve someone, came back to find the Puffer had escaped and was trying to kill everything in the tank with it. Of course, most are not as bad as that one.

 

[finius]

Thanks guys

I guess I'm wondering how big around they are. Seriously, the ones I saw were about the size of a peanut. Not the shell, one pea nut one pea.

Wow, that arrowhead/pignose sounds like the Mike Tyson of fish!

 

[Lithril]

Personally I wouldn't put any more than about 4-5 dwarfs in a 20, you could get away with a few more if you really wanted to, but make sure you have loads of caves for them. Puffers are really messy eaters and put a lot of bioload onto the filter, also they can fight so if you put too many in you'll be asking for trouble.

 

[freshwatergal]

IMO, You could get away with 6 puffs in a 20 gal tank. Dwarfs only need about 3 gals per fish because of how messy they are when they eat. I have 6 in my 20 gal tank and they are just fine. I also have 3 bumble bee gobies, and 2 otto's. They all get along great. I have two caves, 5 tall plants, and some smaller plants for ground cover.

HTH & Good Luck,
Tiff

 

[Perky]

The Arrowhead is not always mean but I would be carful it doesn't bite your hand, where is CFC for info on this species?

 

[jread]

I agree with the others... no more than 6 or so in a 20-gallon.

The ones you see at pet stores are always young... probably because they are tank-raised. I've never seen an adult dwarf at a LFS before. As was stated already, they get to about 1" when fully grown.

Well, I was going to post a link for you but the admins of the site seem to have blocked my site URL. How mature of them