Pea Puffer Care and Breeding: A Tiny Fish with a BIG Attitude! 

If you are looking for nano fish like pea puffers or shrimp check out Flip Aquatics! flipaquatics.com/collections/all-nano-fish Also, our new shirts can be found at: www.primetimeaquatics.com/merch For the latest in the fish room check us out on Instagram primetime_aquatics For more cool behind the scenes stuff consider becoming a member! ru-vid.com/show-UCYVN7EN0ALL6CE4U7NpMUTAjoin If you want to see all the cool stuff Joanna does with other types of scapes check out her channel! ru-vid.com/show-UCPEZk1MpOTGiBVh6BtWjlRg

I adore the pea puffers! THANKS FOR YOUR VIDEOS!! I have a pea puffer in with my male guppies in a 5.5 gallon tank. The reason all is well is 1) the tank is FULL of live plants for lots of coverage 2) there are a LOT of ramshorn snails. 'Puffy' single-finnedly manages the WHOLE colony of snails by himself. He eats the snail-eggs AND the baby snails. He leaves the adult snails alone. As the adult snails eventually die off from old age, I add more snails from my other tanks. Puffy works everyday checking the eggs. He does NOT bother the guppies. Occasionally the boy guppies try to get amorous with him and he just swims away, lol. It is one of the great joys of my life to watch this 3/4 inch fish manage this snail colony. It is very important to add more snails when the old ones die naturally of old age, after laying lots of eggs in their life-time. 2 years now, this has been going on. LOTS of plants encourage the snails laying their eggs, and it gives Puffy lots to keep 'interested' in. He carefully SCANS every square inch of the tank for his dinners. AMAZING little fish. I am so grateful to know and be able to observe him.💦🙏🐟

I have had my pea puffer for eight years and he is still going! Great video!

Hey Jason, as I live next to where there is a pretty good amount of pea puffers I'll tell you what I witnessed about them in the wild; Pea puffers ( Carinotetraodon Travancorius ) is normally found in schools in the wild they have varying substrate in different parts of the river as some parts have a rocky gravel and others have sand while others have a mixture of both. The plants normally found there are limnophylla aromatics,vallisneria natans, cryptocoryne spirals [ is the most likely crypt species I found still trying to get a good id ], lagenandra toxicaria,najas minor, and a few others, the river had varying flow with most of the fish staying in places with medium flow while others stayed in stagnant dead spots in the river Hope you find my info useful!

In the ocean Dolphins play with puffer fish flinging them around . The puffer fish release a toxin as a result and dolphins get high of it .They pass the puffer fish around in like a game sharing the high toxin it releases amongst the pod ,. I saw a wildlife show about it it’s incredible . And fascinating.

In my experience, my pea puffers don't go after adult cherry shrimp. I have half a dozen wild-colors in a 5g with my puffer, they graze and breed without any issues. They're especially helpful since a clean-up crew is important for the messy eating. Of course, the puffer definitely eats the offspring, but that's not a problem for me at all.

Have one little guy who is about 1.5 inches which is pretty big in a 5.5 gallon by himself. The second I enter the room he sees me and goes nuts! Coolest nano fish ever

I used to have them many years ago. There used to be a great website and forum for them, but sadly because of forum spammers the site went away. Some of the things that I and others found is that you had to give them snails (pest snails seem to work best,) at a minimum of once a month, but preferably most often, as it helped in grinding their teeth down so that they don't over so big that they can't eat. They like to school in groups of 5 to 10, but they also needed places to hide and get away from the others. The "rule of thumb" that we used was that it was 1 for every three gallons, but one needed to do water changes at least once a week. They will also get to know you. I had some on a desk tank that would come up and watch me as I did stuff on the Internet. They are a great fish to have, but not for beginners.

Eenie and Meenie did so good in this video! 🥰🥰

I have six that I have kept with amano shrimp for a couple of years now. I've provided ghost shrimp and snails as something for them to hunt for, but the amano seem to be too big, active and tough for the pea puffers to bother. If anyone would want to try, probably not the worst idea to buy larger or grow-out younger ones before adding them to an established tank. I put mine in at the same time as the pea puffers who were juveniles at the time.

Bought my first pea puffer this year, drove two hours to get her and i love her !!!!

Just picked up 3 of these little beauties for a 20gallon. They’ve only been in there a day or 2 so are still a touch shy but are coming out of themselves. Soooo cool!

Hi, keep going guys, I love what you do! I have started my own aquarium-related business recently and your advice has always been helpful :)

My female pea puffer (i named her sweet-pea) has been in a 6 gallon tank for about 6 or 7 months, was in a 4 gallon for 6 months before that and is doing great, i have her with a couple of amano shrimp, which she doesnt bother at all, and a couple of nerites. For the first month i had her she was in a 5 gallon with my super old silver molly but started biting the mollies fins, so i had to take her out. Other than her being VERY shy she is a wonderful fish and is a joy to watch eat little snails.

It's really great fish. I keep puffer for 4 years, he is my favorite. When he grew up with neocaridina shrimp things go's fine, they don't interesting him. But when he became adult- eating them with pleasure, also eating snails eggs. Now lives in own tank. Thanks for yousfull info. Thanks for the useful information. And popularization this guys!

So I’ve got 3 male and 3 female in my 30 gallon and lately it’s been very entertaining! And a lot of matting going on! I’m so excited I don’t know how it’s gonna turn out but they all pick on each other but they get along and mate multiple times with different partners lol

I have 15 pea puffers in my LowBoy and they will "school" around together in a schoal of 5-10 normally

I have Seven of those Perfect Fish👌🏼 They are in 33 Galllons without any other fish and are very Healthy🙃

I love my pea puffers. I have five in a 29 gallon tall. They live with 2 bristle nosed plecos. The peas leave the plecos alone and the plecos are growing fat eating left over blood worms and snail parts. Their tank has hardscape and plants. I found that is a must; it allows the puffers to have their own territories.

I had a set of 4 pea puffers a couple years ago. Loved them! But they picked on the mystery snail a lot and I ended up taking the snail out of that tank. So I guess it depends. Loved the video! These little guys dont get enough appreciation.

Love the size of that tank. Hard to find longer tanks, which is what I think fish are happier in.

I love my PeaPuffers. I do a species only with some Ottos. They were frustrating at first to get them eating, but now they are fatties. My LFS insists they need salt, but the reason I went with them is because they don’t. Great video as always. Love from Wisconsin!

I have a 32g cube with 10 pea puffers, 12 brigittea rasboras and a thriving colony of cherry shrimp. It's possible some of the shrimp get picked off from time to time but I've never seen the peas even look at the shrimp. It's well planted. I have two males and eight females they will school together especially when stressed like on waterchange day. No breeding observed yet been about a year now. Love your channel keep up the great job!

Pea puffers are by far one of the hardest fish to care for, in my experience. Although, they can tolerate a relatively wide range of water parameters, it's their strict diet requirements that really prevented me from ever having any real success in keeping them. Can never get them to feed on anything other than frozen bloodworms. Even then, they are reluctant to take them after they've been thawed out for more than a day. They will not eat any other frozen foods and obviously can't feed them dried food. The batch that I had also were not actively hunting any pest snails which I found odd. They may have been suffering from internal parasite though. These fish are so picky, they would literally rather starve to death than take any food you offer them. NEVER getting these fish again.

I just got a little puffer myself and I thought of Joanna and how excited she gets talking about them. 😊 Thank you for your education.

when I had my dwarf puffers, they seemed to get along just fine, and actually seemed to school together. Something that I learned when owning them is how they tend to get stressed very easily, and this can lead to very wierd behaviors. As long as the dwarf puffers feel safe, I don't believe they should have any problems with each other. something else to keep in mind is that you need to keep the filter or some sort of oxygen flow in the tank at all times, as the dwarf puffers don't handle well without it. (This happened to me a lot during power outages. after only 2 hours, the puffers will become lethargic unless you add some sort of oxygen flow.) The one nice thing about dwarf puffers is it is easy to tell when something is bothering them. they will either be more lethargic, or not eat as much. Edit: both of my dwarf puffers were male puffers, but they ended up getting along pretty well. even when food was involved, they never really got into any fights.

I guess I got really lucky. I finally got a pea puffer and put it in my male Betta/endlers 5 gallon tank. I must have picked an easy going puffer because I had problems at 1st with my Betta picking on my puffer. The best thing to do is introduce the puffer last so that everyone else is settled. They all get along now.

Holy Crap!!! Almost 100K SUBS!!! I’ve been watching for some time now but just realized where PTA was at😁 Awesome Job!

I have 3 males in a 30 gallon with plenty of fish (algae eaters, dwarf gourami's, and tetras) they do just fine. Plenty of hiding spaces for everyone :)

So happy to see this! I have been prepping a 29 gallon since pre- covid for pea puffers. Can’t find them local. Will look at Flip Aquatics. Thank you!

Keep my girl with an African Dwarf Frog in a 6 gal. It works out well and she leaves him alone. I like to imagine they're friends now 😌 Moving to a 15 soon

I have four Pea Puffers in an eight-gallon tank for about a year now. It is heavily planted. I have a colony of neocaridina that cleans up the dead snail mess that Pea Puffers create. My wife is not a big fan of most of the fish I keep except these guys! 😁

I got a free fluval spec from someone, 5 gallons, and I wanted just 1 fish, but not a betta, I immediately thought of pea puffers when considering it!! I've always wanted one but I was doing huge community tanks for a while, but that got too hard for me so I'm doing smaller tanks for around the past year or 2, and it's been so easy to care for, and my live plants are thriving where in big tanks they always died!

My female is in a planted 29 with some tetras, a pair or kerbensis, and a gourami. She does amazing. Great vid, hit everything on the head👍

Those Celestial Pearls are looking NICE!!!

I love the way regular neons and black neons look together because they school as one species and a pea puffer would be the perfect centerpiece fish💯🌱🐡💙🔥

Thank u for the helpful info .I'm looking into getting pea puffers. I always do my research before getting any new fish . I have 5 fish tanks

I have a 25g densely planted cube, included with 8 pea puffers and surprisingly a horde of cherry shrimp culls. I have a colony in my community tank so I tried to throw in a few and see what happened… and now I have two colony’s.

Jason those are the most beautiful CPDs I have ever seen!

I love these guys and I really want to add them to my tank someday. Thank you for all the information on the care for them! I hope you have a very blessed day my friends 🙏🌿🐟🌿💚

I have a 50 breeder planted with 20 peas couple Corey cats a bristlenose pleco and a few hillstream loaches been 5 years now with no problems one of my favorite puffer tanks and I have 7 different puffer tanks but it all started with my peas adorable little Puffer they have no idea there little

Their so cute . I used to have two of them years ago . But i only kept a pair, mine got on ok . Thanks for the vid it triggered great memories of keeping them , mine preferred live food. Thats what i fed mine . Mine loved bloodworms the most

I just got 3 pea puffers and they are pretty cool but very high maintenance. 2 of them have nice round bellies but the 3rd smaller one seems to be a more finicky eater, but all of them are pretty picky. They will eat pond snails when I toss them in and frozen bloodworms, but that is all I have gotten them to eat so far. They weren't interested in frozen brine shrimp or krill. I'm culturing some scuds so hopefully they will enjoy going after the scuds. My LFS sells live brine shrimp, maybe I will try those as well

Ok no Shrimp got it but what about Mexican Mini Lobsters? Please hope you answer my question bro and one more thing...Can i put in a Scarlet Badis with the Pea Puffer?

i got mine in a 40 breader with corys, golden algea eaters, phatom tetras, ember tetras, neon cardinals and cherry shrimp. they doing fine and tend to ignore the other fish

Every time I search up stuff about cichlids or other aquarium fish your RU-vid videos pop up so I subscribed.

I had thought of getting some sort of puffer but haven't decided on tank size yet. Great video!

In Germany we call them Erbsenkugelfisch. I have 3 sweet Pea Puffer with beautiful eyes. They are very robust. The problem is their hunger. I have several aquarium basim for snail farming.

Have a 20 gallon tall, with 3 puffers 1male, 2 female. 6 ember tetra, 3 pom pom crabs, a decent colony of cherry shrimp, and 4 kuhli loaches. Plus a mystery snail

I love these puffers. Would the frozen foods be enough for them. I really don’t want to feed them snails.

I have 5 in a 36g bow front..I got them as tiny little guys. I ended up with 1 male and 4 females (I heard that if you have all juveniles that one will become male who will then release a chemical so the others don’t become males? Or something like that)..anyways, I had Amano shrimp with mine for a long time. No issues. I’ve learned that mine at least are afraid of anything larger than they are. Amanos get larger than your average pea. I also put in Cory’s, golden killifish, zebras, tetras, Otos and a snowball pleco with a bristle nose. I also have a clown pleco that chills in his cave all day. Seems like a lot, but it’s heavily planted and the killifish and zebras stay mostly towards the top. I also run 2 filters which turns my tank like 500g a hour or something like that. I have no issues. Only chasing between all the fish is between their own. Maybe I got lucky 🤷‍♀️

I have a 20g long with 5 pea puffers. One 'pair' are acting a bit odd. I'm not sure if they are canoodeling, or picking on each other. Can you show breeding behavior in pea puffers so I can compare?

I had 10 pea puffers in my 55g with dwarf rainbowfish. The rainbowfish fins were getting wrecked. Decided to keep the puffers in with my snowball shrimps. The snails didn't really survive, but the snowballs are still alive.

This was great, thank you! Love these little fish, but not ready for them yet.

I really like the people for hopefully I'll add one or two to my collection someday thank you for the info always love your videos 👍👍

Thank you, these are the custest lil guys!

It took me a long time to get a pea puffer...but my LFS was having trouble keeping them alive..they were very small..so I got a real tiny one closed my eyes and placed him in my 10g female guppy tank..I was shocked to see him still alive the next day..but over time he had doubled in size..he only likes snails ..he kills them himself I've never crushed them up..he is fine with the guppies..apart from a large female that hit him once and he has never forgot..he is also fine with my nirite snails..we had words about that..but if he gets much larger I will remove them...every week I move things about to keep the tank interesting..he really gets excited at food time and swims around with the guppies..I mostly use bug bites in there and I wonder if he eats some when he does his inspection of the sand and filter..great little fish but he is often off on an adventure so it's exciting when he comes out the plants to say hi...😆

I feed mine grindal worms they go nuts for them.

Quick question Jason . If I may , I’ll be building a new heavy planted scaped 6gallon UN long that is 24 inches long. I want a group of 5 chili rasboras , 3 pigmy coradoras with a handful of red cherry shrimp. Would a tiny baby pea puffer eat my shrimp and chill rasboras? In my setup? Tank it’s not setup yet still waiting on my heater and filter so I can get started with my scape

Having a 135 gallon planted community tank with red tail shark , 6 sae, 22 candy cane tetras, 10 lazer corys, 4 plecos, zebra, bristle nose, blue phantom, butterfly, 1 paradise flag fish and finally last but not least 16 Congo tetras . When I purchased some plants I didn’t have an idea that Malaysian trumpet snail eggs were on plants and now I have thousands in my tank . Would a pea puffer be ok in my tank?

Mine will actually eat Vibra Bites, which is a relief because it was getting skinny on blood worms only.

These have got to be my most favorite fresh water fish I have ever kept. They will come to the glass and follow you!

Great informative video - I love pea puffers - I have a group of 5 that are about 12 months old in my community tank, tiny fish - very big personality 🥰 🇬🇧

I've had a fahaka and love puffers ,i now have a 120 gallon community tank with some angels ,tetras,corys,plecos,some rams do you think one or a couple could co-exist?

I have a couple questions: 1) Do you think I could keep a colony of pea puffers in, say, a 55gal? Or would they fight too much? And 2) You mentioned that pea puffers shouldn't be kept with neo shrimp since they'll eat them. Is it bad for them to eat them, or could I use culls from my neo tanks as treats for the puffers?

The CPD looks great in that lighting! What you lighting that tanks with?!!!

I've got 4 pea puffers in a 55gallon tank with a small school of rummy nose and shrimp. It's been this way for about 2 months now and everybody seems to be getting along. 😁

My baby pea puffer is in my beta tank and never nipped him once. I believe it’s because it’s the diet it feed them (blood worms) which they both eat. plus some tiny snails for his teeth

This is a very helpful video I’m wanting to breed my pea puffers do you have anymore tips on breading them

I had five babies in Feb, but sadly and for an unknown reason I lost 'Big Momma'. The alpha male is a whopper and keeps the others in check, although he just hides behind shrubs now. They all have their own personalities. I love them to bits. You have to keep a close eye on them and water quality.

Galaxy rasbora in your tank is gorgeous. I really want to get some but my fish store sells out everytime they get them in! I know it's not recommended but solo schooling fish always have so much personality

I love my pea puffer group and can't wait to upgrade them to a 4ft long tank . I've got mine with micro rasboras and a micro synodontis species and had no issue at all with them all together as I had been told on many occasions to keep them in a pea puffer only tank . But I also know people who have had the pea puffers kill anything and everything in the tank including the other pea puffers so I can see how they have the nick name murder beans

My little puffer shares her 5 gallon portrait tank with a huge ghost shrimp. They make a comical pair. She is a challenge to feed though. She doesn't care for bloodworms much. I set up a small tank to raise snails for her. While I don't get a lot of snails, she loves to eat whatever the other little critters are that appeared magically in that tank. They look like some kind of crustacean and sort of leap through the water. There are hundreds of them. I net a few of them for her every day. She loves hunting and eating them (so does the shrimp).

I have dwarf frogs in the same tank as my pea puffers, I just got them today so I'm not sure if they will get along.

I have a 150 gallon tank with 1 dwarf dourami, a school of red gara and black mollies, two guppies, one pleco & loach, green & albino cories, and a couple of tetras that look like silver dollars. Are those compatible with the pea puffers?

I got seven ember tetra in my 9 gallon flex. Can’t wait to add a pea puffer Maybe two female? Tank is heavily planted and features rocks as hard scape

Thank you so much Jason.. I can't choose between Goby's or Pea Puffers for my perfectly cycled tank....

So I have 3 puffers sadly they are all male. I also have a big mystery snail n amano and cherry shrimp. Honestly they don't mess with anything except the mystery snail. But I plan to move them to a heavily planted tank. Can't wait to move them. They are honestly some of the most curious fish I have ever owned

Definitely second buying your peas from Flip Aquatics, they’re one of the very few online retailers that actually medicate and pre-quarantine their fish before selling and that’s a definite must before buying puffers (unless you plan to medicate yourself) Bought 3 in August and they are a comical trio (ended up with all females) also definitely suggest overfiltering their tanks & starting a snail colony months before actually purchasing. It takes at least 3-4 weeks to get an “eatable” size pest snail. Started a colony in May and they’ve gone through 3 generations since August.

I have 3 dwarfs in my tank, I absolutely love them🥰🥰🥰

Male guppies are working ok… I have 3 dwarf peas … they are brand new (10 gallon for now moving to palladium) but for now they are with my male guppies and three med sized fry and everyone is doing ok.

Thanks for the video. I have always wondered about pea puffers and the ph, hardness, temperature they will thrive in. I am surprised at the large range of ph they can live in. This was a great educational video. I will be watching it again. 👍🐠

Will they go after small fish? No invertebrates? Bigger invertebrates "amano shrimp, bamboo shrimp, dwarf freshwater crawfish and crabs" okay or not?

My LFS just got these. So cute! I want some!

I love those little fish, and wish I could have some right now. Concentrating on breeding fish right now though. Another awesome video Jason thank you.

I have a beautiful pair in a very heavily planted 10 gallon with a ton of structure to it as. I feel like I am wasting so much space with 2 fish that both equal 2 inches. I would like to try out a few tank mates. I have been getting into nano fish lately. I tried head and tail tetra and the pea puffers ate their fins, and worked them into ick. This was before I knew better. The tank was prefect for them, I was told that the tetra should do good cuz they are big and fast.

My pea puffers are tank/couch surfers.They do like bladder snail.

Lmao apparently I’ve already seen this video? So I’m watching it again. Do I have any fish? Nope. Will I? Doubt it. But let’s watch this again 😂

Cool fish jason i wood live to have a puffer fish in my aquarium thats a cool tank you have where can i get a puffer fish and also can i get one in a freshwater

I have 7 pea puffers, 1 male and 6 female, with neocardinia shrimp in a 55g long but now that I know I can keep other fish I might try that. Maybe emerald eye rasboras or just kuhli loaches.

I got mine from Flip Aquatics too and they are doing great.

I'm thinking of upgrading my saltwater tanks and that would leave me with my 10 gallon cubes empty. Do you think it would be possible to keep one male with two females in a heavily planted cube tank? :) Also, would they eat Malaysian trumpet snails? I have infestation of these guys in my Betta tank and would love to find a way to get rid of the excess of them on regular basis. 😊

Here in Australia pea puffers sell for $200-$300 AUD ($140-210 USD) each, as in, that’s how much you pay for ONE. As they cannot be imported from overseas, breeding them is a great moneymaker for anyone willing to give it a shot.

I see a charelvoix stone in your tank I have one as well

I have 14 of them in a 30 gallon. And i do not see a problem with them. About 8 even school sometimes and move together as a group. They seem to get along great. At least for me.

I have a 30 gal with dwarf chain loaches, guppies, a betta and 2 pea puffers and a bunch of cull cherry shrimp .... hoping it works out. The betta/loaches wont touch the shrimp and I'm hoping to cut their numbers a bit.

Great video, thanks!

My first tank was a single pea puffer in a 10 gallon. Her name was Squishy, and I adored her! Since becoming a mom, I haven’t kept a tank in a while. However, my son and I are ready to set one up, and I’d like a pea puffer or pea puffers. You mentioned keeping only females… A couple of questions: Are the females aggressive towards each other at all? How early can they be sexed? How many would be best in a 10 gallon? I want whatever is optimal for the fish. THANKS A BUNCH! YAAAAAY PEA PUFFERS!!! 🐡

I love pea puffers. I got some and they are the best!

I am new to the hobby, I had 7 platies now maybe 50+ i have another tank set up to separate the females and males but I think a pea puffer could be good for helping me control the population right?