15g bumble bee puffer questions

[dean86]

Hi guys and girls

Not been on here for a while. I've been in the hobby a long time and had fw, fw planted and marine tanks. After a break I've decided to get back into the hobby again with a small 55 litre (15 gallon). So I've began setting it up with a fine gravel and started a fish less cycle. Planning/hoping to keep a bumble bee puffer in there. I've done as much research as I can find and am aware of the dentistry and food requirements etc but I have a few questions that I would like to hopefully clear up before committing to anything.

1. After reading conflicting information does anyone know of these are a brackish or freshwater fish
2. With the dentistry and feeding requirements can anyone advise a means of care while on holiday(vacation) for a week or so.
3. How many? I originally read that one solitary fish would require 15 gallons and the fish is best kept in groups of 6 or more or as a single specimen. I have since read suggestions of 3 4 6 and one site advising that they should definitely not be kept alone.
4. Can anyone recommend a snail or hard shelled food that can be easily bred and reared as food for my puffer.

I'm sure I had more questions when I began writing but my mind has gone blank. I'm sure I will add more later on

Thanks in advance

Dean

 

[Laser]

If bumble bee puffer is the same as a dwarf or pea puffer, then it is definitely freshwater.

I have only ever kept one dwarf puffer in a planted 10g. It was my understanding you could keep multiple puffers as long as there were plenty of places to hide. 1 is probably the safest bet, but 3-5g per puffer seems reasonable to me.

My single dwarf puffer was never able to eat more snails then the snails could produce that lived in his tank, but I had a deep substrate with MTS. I fed him pond snails from another tank from time to time. If you were gone for a week it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Dwarf puffers don't have nearly as much as issue with overgrown teeth as other puffers.

Pond or Ramshorn are probably the best snails, but Malaysian Trumpet Snails should work as well. I also fed mine a variety of frozen food soaked in some kind of nutrient booster, but I can't remember the name of it. The only frozen food he really loved was blood worms, but he also liked Daphnia.

Unfortunately, he only lived for 2 years. I'm not sure what happened, the water parameters were never off. He was a really fun little fish though. Maybe there is some truth to not keeping them alone.