Getting Dwarf Pea Puffer off snails?

I have a dwarf pea puffer and he LOVES snails. I am running out of snails. He will not accept frozen brine shrimp. Any suggestions? thx

 

Try live black worms and frozen blood worms. And find more snails!

 

How would I acquire some snails? Any suggestions?

 

I used to have a 1 gallon bowl with a screen rubber banded over the top that I kept glass snails in. They are terrestrial snails and are omnivorus and canabalistic. So I literally fed them vegetables and delI meat scraps and then when they got over populated, they'd just eat eachother.

Maybe you could breed these to feed to your puffer? They reproduce like crazy and are super easy to control.

 

I can tell you when I ordered plants from PlantedAquariumsCentral .com they came with bladder snails so that is one option, order plants from there and then just put the plants in a small tank and let the snails multiply in there for an ongoing supply. You might want to check with any LFS around you that sells live aquatic plants if they happen to have some snails they can spare. Or you can buy fancier types of snails from fish stores but there is some debate on which types are ok / not ok for dwarf puffers.

It's unfortunate, think how many people do all this stuff to eradicate snails from their planted tanks, when so many pea puffer owners would love to get their hands on those snails!

 

I would go to petsmart and just ask for their pest snails. Then I got a 1 gallon tank and just tossed them in and they would breed

 

You can get bladder snails from almost any store for free.

Also, most puffers won't eat any frozen food, only live. You'll want to find a source for live blackworms and maybe start ordering feeder isopods and crustaceans online.

 

I'm planning on getting a pea puffer soon, and I have a glass jar of about 30 baby tadpole snails. When I finally have everything ready, I will move the snails to a larger container where they can have a growth spurt (I've studied these guys in my 5 gallon tank and they will grow to almost adult size within a week) and then I will use them as feeders! They also breed about 3 weeks after being born so it's an awesome species to have foe breeding and feeding Would definitely reccomend you get your hands on a couple tadpole snails!

 

My puffer totally ignores frozen Mysis shrimp. But I've gotten him to eat frozen bloodworms. Of course, he loves snails. I'm breeding ramshorn and bladder snails, but I need something else to feed him. He eats snails faster than they hatch.

Try Omega One frozen bloodworms - the flat pack with one slab, rather than cubes.

 

Thx for all the responses!

 

Our puffers happily ate bloodworms. I cut up the Omega One flat pack bloodworms. Also started a 2.5 gallon snail tank with bladder snails (the mini-pond ones).

 

I got 2 pea puffers last week and for the first days they wouldn't eat the frozen mysis shrimp I gave them... But I came up with an idea and I now use a pipet to but food in the tank right in front of them, with some of the mysis getting out of the pipet and I move it in their face. I don't know why exactly but it's working great! If I just let the food fall in they don't eat in, only when it's movig

 

I got 2 pea puffers last week and for the first days they wouldn't eat the frozen mysis shrimp I gave them... But I came up with an idea and I now use a pipet to but food in the tank right in front of them, with some of the mysis getting out of the pipet and I move it in their face. I don't know why exactly but it's working great! If I just let the food fall in they don't eat in, only when it's movig

Ill try this thx

 

HI all!
I've been in the process of dry starting and readying a 20 gallon dirted planted aquarium for around 4 months now. The tank has been filled and cycling for about a month.
I was convinced it was cycled after seeing ammonia present for a couple weeks and eventually it tapered off and nitrates were present. (In all my years of fish keeping I've never caught the nitrite phase in the transition period before nitrates are processed.) I decided I needed to cap the soil with sand which I should've done from the beginning so I bought sand, rinsed it, and added it to the tank. All seemed well after about a week and levels looked promising so I decided it was time for pea puffers! Seeing as the tank was pretty heavily planted, I decided to get six juvenile puffers. I made a day of the journey, its an hour drive to the nearest LFS. I acclimated them on a drip system for a couple hours and released them into the tank. I also got one dozen ghost shrimp so they'd have something to hunt. (I fear this was a mistake and knew it could kick me in the butt later.) For the first 24 hours everyone seemed happy, they ate frozen bloodworms and were excited to do so.
The next morning I woke up and found one puffer caught in my filter intake, it had seemed mildly lethargic the day before so I chalked it up as a fluke and did water tests only to find that nitrites were present! WHAT? It was barely any but I've never seen nitrites present in any of my tanks after cycling. I thought "... I must've shocked the cycle when I added in the sand because I drained most of the water to take out the tannins in the water."
I was at a loss for ideas.
I decided to take a sample and then did a 40% water change. I did another set of tests and found no ammonia, no nitrites, and about 10-15 ppm nitrates. I took the dead puffer back to the shop, a two hour round trip, and I got another puffer because I wanted six and was afraid I may not be able to reintroduce new ones once the current puffers established territories. (FOOLISH IDEA.)
I acclimated the new puffer and he seemed super happy with everyone else. I kept doing tests daily and kept finding low levels of nitrites, so I did daily partial water changes too reciprocate. This was all last weekend and the days following. Today I awoke to find a puffer just chilling on the substrate bed, breathing and fins beating, but not swimming with the others. He looked stressed.
(I should also mention that at this point the puffers have killed 4 shrimp but the mortality count was somewhere like 5 or 6, I kept finding white and dead ghost shrimp with almost no physical damage. super weird and a total red flag... but for what I don't know for sure.)
I did another water change and netted the puffer and set the net so its on the rI'm of the tank with the puffer inside. Just before writing this I noticed another puffer just chilling at the bottom and hes almost tremoring like his tail muscles are twitching.
I checked the water and it appears the tank is fully cycling nitrites again because the nitrates are sitting at around 15 ppm and there's no nitrates to be found.
I decided to test my tap water and found that there's around 10 ppm nitrates present which makes me think the tank potentially wasn't cycled at all when I thought it was.
I'm just at a loss, I need to figure out what's going on. My fear is that I stressed the puffers out with daily PWC's but thankfully they are no longer necessary if the tank is processing nitrites.

If you've made it this far, thank you! I know the thread is lengthy. Any help from some more experienced people than myself is appreciated.

Some extra info that may be useful: I used organic potting soil, about 2" of it, there were earthworms (small) in the soil when I got it and surprisingly they're still living in the soil underwater. How is beyond me. I used general purpose Quikrete sand, about one inch to cap the soil. Bubbles do come through and the dirt seems to have some anaerobic bacteria producing low levels of hydrogen sulfide. The gas bubbles smell occasionally very faintly like eggs and onion. I emphasize only some of the bubbles, and its VERY faint. I doubt this has anything to do with it but it's worth at least mentioning.

Update: I just checked on everyone and there's two that are happily swimming about and 3 that are hiding and acting a little lethargic. No fatalities however, thank the Lord.

 

ITS PH SHOCK!!!!! I remembered reading about someone earlier today who's water comes out of the tap acidic and it gradually turns basic over a day or so and I wondered about it being a possibility... I tested the tank water, its a pH of 8.1-ish. I then used my high range test to test the tap... IT BRIGHT TURNED YELLOW. Yellow isn't even on the scale for the high range test. I then grabbed another sample from the tap and used the mid range pH test, it started foaming and I watched the color turn from a 6.7 to a 7.2 over the last 10 minutes. I'm about to call my local water treatment plant and see what the heck is happening.

 

No worries about the long post--the more info the better. Did you drip acclimate the ghost shrimp before adding them? Shrimp are VERY SENSITIVE to water quality, and a number of them dying right off the bat may have caused an ammonia spike, leading to nitrites. And if your pH did what you just said, then yes, that would be an issue too.

If you can, pick up some Indian Almond Leaves (aka Catappa leaves), because that will help lower the pH and release some nice tannins. Do multiple, small water changes (with bottled RO/distilled water if you can) to gradually lower the pH in the meantime.

The warning I got with peas is that they are VERY messy eaters. Mine have massacred several dozen snails in the week we've had them. I do 25% water changes every other day, to keep up with that, and I have 3 (hopefully, but haven't seen #3 in a few days) in 20 gallons.

 

Well I've read all your thread and found it interesting it goes without saying your a seasoned Aquarist I have an idea maybe that may be rubbish but anyway it's worth a shot, is it possible the soil was giving off something that the tank could cope with until you capped it it was then locked into the substrate with the sand, you then added fish and all the time whatever it is was building up underneath the sand until it broke through a a rate where the tank can't cope and is killing off the fish, it just a thought

 

Well I've read all your thread and found it interesting it goes without saying your a seasoned Aquarist I have an idea maybe that may be rubbish but anyway it's worth a shot, is it possible the soil was giving off something that the tank could cope with until you capped it it was then locked into the substrate with the sand, you then added fish and all the time whatever it is was building up underneath the sand until it broke through a a rate where the tank can't cope and is killing off the fish, it just a thought

PART of that isn't rubbish at all The soil in dirted tanks often included wood an other organic materials which break down, releasing ammonia but also helping to keep pH low AND is a great bacteria sink. Capping it MAY have helped the pH level rise by isolating the tank water from your buffer, as well as sequestering away some of your ammonia-eaters.
Hope you can get your equilibrium back soon--my recommendation would be to NOT mess with the substrate too much now. Water changes will be your friend. Hope the water company gives you some answers, and can help you determine when it will be safe again to rely on them.

 

No worries about the long post--the more info the better. Did you drip acclimate the ghost shrimp before adding them? Shrimp are VERY SENSITIVE to water quality, and a number of them dying right off the bat may have caused an ammonia spike, leading to nitrites. And if your pH did what you just said, then yes, that would be an issue too.

If you can, pick up some Indian Almond Leaves (aka Catappa leaves), because that will help lower the pH and release some nice tannins. Do multiple, small water changes (with bottled RO/distilled water if you can) to gradually lower the pH in the meantime.

The warning I got with peas is that they are VERY messy eaters. Mine have massacred several dozen snails in the week we've had them. I do 25% water changes every other day, to keep up with that, and I have 3 (hopefully, but haven't seen #3 in a few days) in 20 gallons.

I'm not positive there was a spike due to the dead shrimp, I was hasty to remove them as soon as I found them but it's entirely possible. I think just adding 6 puffers, 12 shrimp, and feeding with high protein foods was enough to cause a spike but I never caught a spike in the act so I have no idea. No levels ever reached a point where it would've harmed the fish but seeing that they escalated quickly after yesterday and today's water change it was likely a shift in pH. There's almost no trace of a shift in pH in the tank now but I think it was a shock to the fish when I dumped in 4 gallons of water with a pH difference of 1.7. I didn't drip acclimate the shrimp but if they'd been shocked I would've lost more to natural causes sooner rather than later. As I said, 4 were confirmed to have been slaughtered by the puffers, I have video evidence of much. (Great video, very Nat Geo-esc.) I did have one that died from a horsehair worm infection but she was immediately quarantined and died only yesterday. I lost two other larger shrimp to unknown causes but they died over 4 days after being added. The puffer that isn't borderline comatose is showing tell-tail signs of pH shock. I'm going to call the city water treatment plant to figure out what in the world is going on.

Well I've read all your thread and found it interesting it goes without saying your a seasoned Aquarist I have an idea maybe that may be rubbish but anyway it's worth a shot, is it possible the soil was giving off something that the tank could cope with until you capped it it was then locked into the substrate with the sand, you then added fish and all the time whatever it is was building up underneath the sand until it broke through a a rate where the tank can't cope and is killing off the fish, it just a thought

Could be, I had this same thought as well. Its all organic soil so I can't imagine anything like fertilizers or chemicals would be present but it is a possibility. I believe what I used was organic Miracle-Gro, I remember that I checked the bag to make sure it was safe and I checked known planted aquarium forums and sites to double check before I used it.

PART of that isn't rubbish at all The soil in dirted tanks often included wood an other organic materials which break down, releasing ammonia but also helping to keep pH low AND is a great bacteria sink. Capping it MAY have helped the pH level rise by isolating the tank water from your buffer, as well as sequestering away some of your ammonia-eaters.
Hope you can get your equilibrium back soon--my recommendation would be to NOT mess with the substrate too much now. Water changes will be your friend. Hope the water company gives you some answers, and can help you determine when it will be safe again to rely on them.

My thoughts exactly. The thing is, the tank pH has been consistently around an 8.1-8.2 even before I capped it. (water here is really hard.) It's been stable with the pH of the tap water, my concern is that the tap water dropped by 1.7 in a very short time and I had no way of knowing because who expects that great of a shift from the city water supply? I don't think anyone does a pH test before every water change.

 

Update: I called the water provider but unfortunately its a big name company based in another state so they have to send a testing request to the local branch and then have a rep call me in the next 24 hours with more information. I just wanted to know what caused it and why, I don't need a rep to call me with a full chemical report. Also one of the two puffers died a couple minutes ago. The other could pull through, he looks rough but hes staying upright and his eyes are still very responsive so hes aware of his surroundings.

 

Update #2! Both puffers are dead. I talked to the rep and he said their water leaves the plant at anywhere from a 7-7.5 depending on how much rain they've had. He told me that the water may be a little more acidic from the rain and actually accused me of using inaccurate tests before I told him I was using chemical testing. I know its accurate, I've done a lot of testing in my day and the water is usually an 8.1-8.3 and today it was a 6.6. There's a discrepancy somewhere. I also did some more tests and found that the tap has about 0.5 ppm ammonia and 20 ppm nitrates. When asked about this, the rep said they use chloromines instead of chlorine because they don't evaporate and this was why there's ammonia in the water. Sounds ridiculous to me that they would rather have ammonia in the water than trace amounts of chlorine but whatever. Of course I was more than respectful to the gentleman on the phone but I made it clear that I have dead fish and some underlying frustration. I know its likely not their fault but for him to tell me that they do testing all around town and have never seen it over a 8.0 is malarkey.

 

So sorry to here all this it's very sad live4wetsleeves from what I've read chloramine is chlorine and ammonia mixed and cannot be separated I don't know if that's true but if it is we are introducing it into our aquariums as prime can't separate them, no doubt you know this

 

The federal limit for nitrates is 10ppm, so 20ppm would mean they're in violation. You can find out here, a database of every water company in the US.

Type in your zipcode, select your water company, and it will tell you everything that's in your water.

 

So sorry to here all this it's very sad live4wetsleeves from what I've read chloramine is chlorine and ammonia mixed and cannot be separated I don't know if that's true but if it is we are introducing it into our aquariums as prime can't separate them, no doubt you know this

Yeah, my conditioner seems to remove the chloramines effectively seeing as no ammonia shows in the tank. Chloramines actually cause a false positive of sorts on the ammonia test which I completely forgot about until I was thinking through it more and did some IR.

Thank you! What a cool resource! Is there a way to contact them? Because my tests show over 8 ppm higher than the recorded amount on this site.