Crawfish For Gsp

[Derpeder]

I read that GSP's love to eat crawfish. Lets say I go down to the river and catch some really small ones for my GSP's to eat.

will that be bad for them? Cause I would love to do that for them if it will not hurt them.

 

[nmonks]

Crawfish (by which I assume you mean what we Brits call freshwater crayfish, family Astacidae) cannot live in salty water. By all means use them as live food, but remove them if the puffer does not eat them immediately.

Do be aware that large crustaceans can injure or kill fish. A big puffer can handle a small crayfish, but the puffer needs to be quite a bit bigger that its prey. I'm sure some specimens are smart enough to avoid large crayfish, maybe even take them down a leg at a time, but I wouldn't risk it. If your puffer is happy to eat frozen unshelled prawns, then the safe option is to stick with them, and obviously the nutrition is identical.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Little Fish]

Do be aware that large crustaceans can injure or kill fish. A big puffer can handle a small crayfish, but the puffer needs to be quite a bit bigger that its prey. I'm sure some specimens are smart enough to avoid large crayfish, maybe even take them down a leg at a time, but I wouldn't risk it. If your puffer is happy to eat frozen unshelled prawns, then the safe option is to stick with them, and obviously the nutrition is identical.

Agreed, in-shell prawns are safer if your puffers will eat them. My F8s are pretty good hunters and more than once they have taken down crayfishes equal to or bigger than themselves. However, one of them got careless 2 weeks ago and gave me a scare. From now on, I will only feed them smaller crayfishes and may be cut off the pincers.

This crayfish was about the same size as my F8s. Both of its eyes, all the legs, and the smaller pincer were bitten off and eaten. The large pincer was too big for the F8s to tear off so it was still attached. The crayfish has turned upside down and the F8s were feasting on it. One of my F8s swam in from the side of the head because another puffer was blocking him from the tail side. While swimming next to the pincer, the crayfish "woke-up" and caught the F8 by the belly with it's remaining pincers. My F8 jumped and wiggled free within seconds. Although I cannot see any injuries (not even a mark on the belly), it must have hurt a lot since the F8 curled up at a corner for 5 minutes. Then he returned to finish the dinner.