Frozen Daphnia

[J-Money]

I bought a little thing of daphnia for my puffers when I got them, and only fed it to them a couple of times. It looks like dust in the water (cuz the pieces are so small) and I don't know if they even eat it. I'm assuming that it's supposed to be small like that on purpose, is it just for baby fish to eat?

 

[wuvmybetta]

Depends on what kind of daphnia. Was it frozen? Every frozen kind I've seen is just like dust, and really only useful for fry or extremely small fish. Zooplankton is much larger daphnia, you can sometimes find it in a jar by the dry foods

 

[guppymonkey]

I usually only use daphnia for fry or fish with small mouths. I tried feeding it to my oscar once and it was just too funny. It took one bite and the cube exploded into a cloud of dust! If your fish don't like it try switching to blood worms or beef heart.

 

[J-Money]

Thanks guys, I will look for the bigger dried stuff, but don't think they will like that. I usually try to vary their diet up. I feed my puffers Frozen bloodworms, beefheart, and daphnia. All of those are frozen. I also throw snails in there obviously and ghost shrimp.

 

[sanguinarydragon]

try feeding live blood worms, its way kewler, i also just resently tried very small feeder fish(baby guppys) to my little puffer and he loved them. though it was hard for him to catch them and he couldnt swallow them whole so had to bite them in two adn chase after their heads. it was kinda vicious but thats why his name's tiger.

 

[J-Money]

was he a dwarf puffer?

 

[J-Money]

Nevermind on your sig i just noticed it's a spotted

 

[guppymonkey]

I wouldn't suggest feeder fish of any kind unless you are personally breeding them. If you get feeders from pet stores they are usually diseased from being overstocked in tanks. Its like playing russian roulette with your fish, eventually its going to get sick from store bought feeders.

 

[J-Money]

Well, I did just buy a 10 gallon tank to start breeding snails in. I guess I could try to breed some feeder fish in there too. Which would be the best kind for what I have?

 

[Erised]

For your dwarf puffer you're best off buying live or frozen bloodworms. Its most nutricious and 99% of the puffers absolutely love it. Daphnia and Brine Shrimp are good as treats but not as a permanent diet. Mine wont touch anything other than bloodworms though

Breeding snails will be a very good idea seeing as they'll need it to keep their teeth down. I've got my 10 Gallon set up with some fish and am breeding snails in it so my puffers can get at least 3 snails a week.

I'm not too sure if feeder fish is a good idea at all, but I'm guessing thats up to you anyway =) If you are gonna start, I'm thinking guppies will be easiest to breed.

--Edit--:
Just wondering, do your dwarfs get along with your other fish? I've heard a lot of stories of people keeping dwarfs in a community tank and ending up having to remove them because the fins of the other fish got too nipped and some fish actually died because wounds/bites has gotten too bad Plus, my 3 puffers couldnt even get along together in my 15Gallon, I had to put one apart in his own tank seeing as he was getting chased too much. Just curious here

 

[J-Money]

I've only added the tetras and guppies in the last week, but they seem to be doing fine. The DP's actually don't mess with them, it's the tiger barbs that chase them a bit. I usually go to my LFS at least once a week for 50 ghost shrimp for the puffers to eat, the barbs end up killing and eating some as well. Also, I run two 60G filters so I can feed my fish a little more than I usually would. I have a lot of space still in my tank. I have 4 shooter glasses (Shot and a half) buried in the gravel, with a couple other big hiding places. Also I have around 8 fake plants and 3 real plants and a fake piece of coral thing. There isn't much line of site and there's plenty of stuff to swim around so here's hopin' they can all just get a long

 

[Erised]

Lucky you for it going all so well!! Wish mine would have been like that Its quite a pain to have to set up a new tank when its 4 at night *sigh* Thank God I had 2 filters in my tank so just got some sand, water and a filter out of the 1 tank so cycling wasnt really needed. Smallest one had a nasty bite on his lip, but he's fine now

And you're very lucky for getting ghost shrimp at a good price! I'm quite sure that if they were the price they are here (3 euros, so about 4 dollars) you wouldnt buy 50 a week

Good luck with your fishies