Before anyone lectures me...
Yes I know the tank is small and overstocked according to any popular online guide. I meticulously maintain water parameters and keep the puffers very well fed. In 4 months I've only lost two. Both occurred within a day of each of the two new stocks. All of the fish were sickly and their fins damaged when I bought them from WalMart. All of the survivors seem to be quite healthy and active.
The tank started off brackish. I decided to restore it to fully freshwater so that I could give them weekly snail meals. As I learned the hard way freshwater snails die instantly when you introduce them into a brackish tank. I'll reevaluate this decision as time goes on.
I have a 30 gallon tank. The plan is to make it the future home of a school of elephant nose fish (other other favorite along with puffers). I'm experiencing some severe financial hardships so the other tank is currently Ryugyong Hotel. If the puffers grow larger than I anticipate and all survive to adulthood I may transfer the equipment to the larger tank.
These puffers are thriving better than any species I have ever had in a 10 gallon. I was constantly losing several species of tetras. It was getting demoralizing and expensive. These puffers are wild caught and survived horrible conditions in my local hillbilly WalMart. Apparently they are tough :).
The tank has been surprisingly peaceful. Very little fin nipping and no puffing. And no signs of any diseases. One morning I woke up to a massacre where one of the babies was 'happily' swimming around with half of it's head missing (and had to euthanize it), but other than that it's been a nice community.
I feed them a large frozen block of blood worms twice daily. I definitely overfeed them but I want to keep the tank peaceful. I compensate for this by cleaning the tank 2-3 times a week.
The tank has is tan colored from the tannins of the wood leaching in. It has now been months and hasn't cleared up. At first I hated it and now I've grown to like the color.
These are great fish. They greet me whenever I approach the tank and watch me. It's really cool.