Pea Puffer Help Needed.

I am getting 3 pea puffers. I want to get 1 male and 2 females for a ten gallon tank. I will have a sand substrate and have java moss, java fern and Anubis. I will have plenty of places to hide like small rock caves, a bunch of wood with tunnels in them and rock towers. I will be using a gravel vac to clean the sand. I will keep it high enough so that it will not bring sand out. I will feed the pea puffers black and bloodworms that are frozen and maybe some snails once or twice a week. I have a few questions that I need help answering.

Am I doing everything right?
How to acclimate pea puffers correctly? - I put them in the tank and let them sit for twenty minutes and put half of a small paper cup (the ones in a bathroom) of tank water in every 10 minutes for an hour. Then I quickly pour them into a net above a bucket so no store water gets in my tank. Is that correct or do you have other ideas?
Do pea puffers have beaks? Should I feed them more snails?
How do I feed them while I am away? can I put pieces of bloodworm in an auto feeder?(I may have to put freeze dried instead of frozen.)
When I get them how to I make sure I get 1 male and 2 females?

Thank you for helping and giving advice.

 

You need bigger tank and good filtration they produce twice more ammonia than regular fish. Clean water is important. Keep the dissolved organics and nitrates low by doing large regular water changes, especially if you are keeping them in smaller tank like you say, bloodworms are fine so is clams or snails..

 

How do I feed them when away? Is auto feeder okay?

 

How do I feed them when away? Is auto feeder okay?

Puffers will eat frozen foods blackworms, brine shrimp, snails etc). They will not eat flake food or freeze dried as a rule, if they do eat any flake food offered it should not be considered a staple diet! You might want to do some research before you get fish like this if you be away most time get fish that you can feed with automated dry food...

 

Most puffers won't eat frozen food, actually. You have to train them onto it.

Not feeding them for a few weeks if you go on vacation occasionally is fine. But when you're there, I would feed them every day.

 

Puffers will eat frozen foods blackworms, brine shrimp, snails etc). They will not eat flake food or freeze dried as a rule, if they do eat any flake food offered it should not be considered a staple diet! You might want to do some research before you get fish like this if you be away most time get fish that you can feed with automated dry food...

I didn't mean to say they will directly eat frozen food like that, of course the food need to be defrosted before feeding..

 

what if I put dried bloodworms in and auto feeder?

 

what if I put dried bloodworms in and auto feeder?

They won't eat them at all. Dried foods are out. Period. I had mine for nearly a year and they would never touch dry foods, only live.

As I mentioned you could probably eventually train them onto frozen foods, but you have to spend time doing it and feed them with tweezers, making them think the worms are alive. If you get something that sinks slowly and moves around in the current you might be able to forego the tweezers, but they are not going to accept dried foods.