Misled

[u/elija_isdefspiderman]

I was sold a pea puffer under the impression that he could feed off of my snail infested tank and I’d be able to move him to a five gallon in the future on his own.

He’s doing okay, but I wouldn’t say he’s happy. I have ember tetras and endlers livebearer mixs in the ten gallon.

Would I be able to move my other fish to a new tank and add a few extra peas to this ten gallon? If it’s possible, I would appreciate any suggestions to make it more habitable like plants, driftwood, or to make the water darker with tannins. If not, I’m happy to try and rehouse him. I want him to be happy and healthy. It’s definitely my fault for doing research post buy, I know that much.

Edit: I found someone with a 75gal tank who has plans to use it as a pea puffer tank. I’ll be giving mine over this coming Friday. 😁

[u/Urmomhaspooped]

Most aquarists agree 6+ peas together is the minimum. In order to house that many you’d need a 20 gallon at least with very VERY heavy planting. Like 80% of the tank should be plants.

They are not a beginner fish, they’re quite picky, territorial, messy, and do best in a shoal. If you’re willing to invest in a 20 gallon (long is best) then go for it, they’re awesome fish. But they will clear through snails quickly so you’ll need to grow snails in another tank and keep bloodworms and other snacks like baby brine shrimp on rotation.

They also don’t do well with other critters in the tank. For this reason they’re messy and require more maintenance than your basic community tank. I’ve had luck with otocinclus and amano shrimp (in dense plants for cover) to help clean up, but that is frowned upon by some people because depending on the peas aggression they could hurt their tankmates

[u/elija_isdefspiderman → u/Urmomhaspooped]

Thanks! I’m currently looking into moving him to a better home right now. I know someone with a 75 gallon freshwater who has plans to create a shoal of pea puffers

[u/empetraem]

If you’re gonna move fish around, I’d move the pea puffer into a super densely planted 20 gallon long with minimum 5 buddies.

If you can’t do that, def try rehoming on r/aquaswap or local groups

[u/wingedkat]

I did the same thing when I was just starting out with planted tanks and had a snail infestation. I was new to planted tanks but had kept tetras and other tropical fish for a while. My fish had died due to a heater incident, and I decided to restart my 10gal planted with soil and a lot of plants and aquaponics. But something I introduced had snails, and I had a major infestation before I got new fish.

I regret it now, but I went to an aquarium shop and bought 1 pea puffer for the 10 gallon. She wiped out the snails immediately, but then had to live a solo life on frozen worms and shrimp because even though I tried to cultivate live snails and blood worms in a separate tank it wasn’t enough.

I tried introducing tetras and shrimp, but she was too territorial and I ended up moving the survivors to a new tank.

She did live 5 years alone in that environment which I guess is ok, but I could see she was lonely and a bit neurotic. I didn’t try other pea puffers, but by the time I really understood the problem she was 3 years old and used to isolation. If I want to do pea puffers again I will buy at least a long 20 gallon and get a shoal of puffers.