small inverts?

[willowthepoet]

are there any inverts (besides snails and ghost shrimp) that can go in a teensy 3-gallon tank?

i have my 3gal set up with lots of plants and just one dwarf puffer (and a constant supply of hitchiker snails that the puffer snacks on) and i'm wondering if there's anything i could put in there.

i'm not too interested in ghost shrimp, but if there's another (more visible) type of shrimp, that would be cool... i don't know of any though.

 

[czcz]

Most of the more colorful Caridina and Neocaridina sp. shrimp, like "Bumblebee," Caridina sp. "New Bee," "Cherry shrimp," and "Crystal red shrimp" will stand out much better than ghost shrimp, but even adults are smaller in size. All are cool. As you may know, it's said an individual puffer's personality determines if it will eat shrimp.

 

[tropicfishman]

hamers blue lobster, big bright blue crayfish lol it would tear your puffer apart though

 

[willowthepoet]

haha, i have a crayfish in my other tank. he's way too big to even think about putting in a 3gal even if he would be okay to live with my puffer.

i've never seen any of those shrimp you mentioned czcz, and i've been looking in several places. the only shrimp i've seen around me are ghost shrimp and bamboo shrimp, which are pretty big. the only place i haven't checked is petco... do you think they would have them? if not, i'll talk to the owner of my favourite LFS to see if she could order some for me. (how much do they cost roughly? petsmart sells bamboo shrimp for $12, which i think is absurd and wouldn't want to pay that much for an even smaller shrimp)

i was thinking about getting one ghost shrimp just to see if my puffer would tolerate it or not. he seems pretty docile, it takes him a couple days to even go after snails when i put them in there, but you never know.

 

[toddnbecka]

I'd test the idea w/a ghost shrimp first, no great loss if it gets eaten. The other shrimp are most likey not going to be found at an lfs. Try Aquabid.com, Invertebrates category, or google for other websites that sell them. They aren't cheap, compared to ghost shrimp, and you'll have to pay shipping too. Too expensive overall to experiment with, I'd see if the ghost shrimp survives for a month first. The Neocardina shrimp are fw shrimp, while most of the ghost shrimp are actually brackish critters. You should do a little research first to see what would work best.

 

[PsiPro]

I have tried to keep my shrimp with a dwarf puffer, and they did fine for a few weeks... then the puffer relized the shrimp tasted good and massacared them.

I don't recoment shrimp

 

[willowthepoet]

hm.... well i'll go out tomorrow and grab up a ghost shrimp, but this isn't looking too promising.

has anybody kept ADFs with puffers? what other tankmates could go in there?

has anybody kept larger snails with DPs successfully? i love ramshorns, but i don't want to put a snail in there for the puffer to just nibble the poor thing to death.

i'm just trying to figure out what else i could put in there... i'm open to suggestions if anybody has ideas.

 

[PsiPro]

ADFs seem like they can be OK. The problem with shrimp is that shrimp taste good and once they get a taste for them its all over.

I keep rams horns with my 5 DP and only the largest ones have survived. Young ones are all gone.

I actually keep DP in my community along with a Fig 8, not the best idea but my Fig 8 is very well behaved and the other fish gang up on the DP. One almost niped a Cory's fin and two others chased it off before it got the bite off.

The above is not recomended

In a 3 gal i would only put other puffers with them, but that still a small tank IMHO for such a curious fish.

 

[lovemybarbs]

Yeah, no crabs or crawdads. My dwarf frog has no problems with the barbs or the pictus. He stomps right over them. They can be active and tough if they are fed properly.