what are these cute little guys like to keep are they hard do they require special treatment of any sort?

any info would be muchly appreciated

There is a bit of info on here if you do a search, but they need to be kept in a tank by themselves as they will nip/kill just about anything from what I hear.

Good info on them here http://www.dwarfpuffers.com/

awesome fish to keep! friendly, fun and full of personality!

they do require a bit more effort to keep than most little fish.

do your research cause puffers are totally worth it!

You have to feed them live food, they will rarely take flake or pellets.

I feed mine grindal worms, blackworms, daphnia, mozzie larvae and I think they eat the snails in the tank (have never seen them do this though). Mine will not eat frozen bloodworms or frozen anything for that matter.

They need approx 20l per fish - sounds extravagant for such a wee beastie, but they need it along with plenty of 'cover' such as plants so that they can stay out of each others' line of sight. Any other fish in one's view is just asking for a bite, no matter what the sex. Try and get one male to two or three females or there will be a war of epic proportions when they get a bit bigger if there are two males, usually culminating in the death of one.

I have ottocinclis in the tank with mine, they act like dead leaves most of the time and the puffers seem to tolerate them in the tank, anything else would probably get harassed and nipped to death. They are feisty wee monsters, I don't know how one of mine survives, when you feed them he starts heading towards a worm until he sees another fish out of the corner of his eye so he has to go chase them off, this done he looks for more food until he sees another fish out of the corner of his eye and... you get the picture - why he is not as skinny as a rake and half dead I do not know.

As disgustipated says they are full of character and cruise around with seemingless effort using their pectoral fins and bending their caudal fins around like a rudder to steer themselves, this they usually keep clamped so they look like little fat torpedoes and they only flare them when they are doing the 'don't mess with me' dance around each other in circles.

Don't buy skinny specimens, they should be plump no matter what the size, and ask the seller what they feed them, if it is not live food but they say they have seen them eat flake I would be a bit skeptical and they look a too thin I would give them a miss.

holly wood fish farm has some in at the moment about three last time i went in for $18 each but i do not know what the sex of them are and he said they rarely get them in as they are very hard to breed in captivity

It is a bit hard to sex them when they are little, it is one of those just hope you get a good mix things.

Someone on here has managed to breed them, you may have to use the search function to find the posts.