Live Food For My Puffers?

[mrhobzywobz]

Hi everyone!

I've had my puffers now for about 8 months and i want to start feeding them some live food, i've been feeding them frozen food up til now. I understand that it is important to feed puffers hard foods like snails to keep their teeth/beaks under control, but when i asked the guy in the fish shop yesterday he said he had never heard of puffers being fed snails anyhoo does anyone know what types of snails can be fed to them? or what types of live food they would be ok with.
Also are there any tricks to get tannin out of water? I've tried boiling my bog wood but the water just won't clear, grrr!

Thanks for reading

Paul

 

[bogwood]

Hi everyone!

I've had my puffers now for about 8 months and i want to start feeding them some live food, i've been feeding them frozen food up til now. I understand that it is important to feed puffers hard foods like snails to keep their teeth/beaks under control, but when i asked the guy in the fish shop yesterday he said he had never heard of puffers being fed snails anyhoo does anyone know what types of snails can be fed to them? or what types of live food they would be ok with.
Also are there any tricks to get tannin out of water? I've tried boiling my bog wood but the water just won't clear, grrr!

Thanks for reading

Paul

My Dwarf Puffer eagerly massacres small, juvenile Ramshorn snails... I usually get these snails as 'hangers on' on new plants that I buy... I just dump them in with the DP and he hunts them down... (Malaysian Trumpet snails are too hard for most puffer)s...

 

[SirMinion]

The Fish Store guy had never heard of people feeding snails to puffers? Snails are many freswater puffer's primary food source in the wild!

So, what species of puffer do you have?

We have 5 different species of varying size from the one inch Dwarfs to the fourteen inch Fahaka and they get a variety of live foods including:

• Live ramshorn or pond snails
• Live bloodworm
• Live jumbo bloodworm
• Live mealworms
• Live waxworms
• Live shrimp
• Live crabs
• Live earthworms

 

[Fella]

Malaysian Trumpet Snails are recommended not to be fed to puffers as the shells are said to be too hard, other than that, pretty much any aquatic snail is game! If you keep dwarf puffers, a great tip for finding tiny snails for them to grind up is to check your filter sponges, and scrape the tiny snails that might survive in there into the tank.

 

[penguinpimp1990]

We have 5 different species of varying size from the one inch Dwarfs to the fourteen inch Fahaka and they get a variety of live foods including:
Live ramshorn or pond snails
Live bloodworm
Live jumbo bloodworm
Live mealworms
Live waxworms
Live shrimp
Live crabs
Live earthworms

Where do you buy your live crabs from? (i know it sounds kinda weird but i like to see my figure 8's tear open a fiddler once in a while though its hard to find ones small enough for the puffers to kill easily )

 

[Little Fish]

Where do you buy your live crabs from? (i know it sounds kinda weird but i like to see my figure 8's tear open a fiddler once in a while )

Petsmart and Petco sometimes have red claw crabs and/or fiddler crabs. I'm reluctant to buy one for my F8s though. The claws seems kind of big for my relatively small F8s. I'm afraid it might injure the F8s even if the F8s eventually overpower it. However, they have no problem with small crayfish about 1.5 inches long. The chase was over within 2 minutes and the whole crayfish was consumed, including the shell.

 

[penguinpimp1990]

im kinda reluctant to buy fish from chains stores but i have done it in the past with no problems. I buy small feeder goldies and quarantine them in a rubber maid setup for 2 weeks then occasionally throw some at my predatory fish. I love it because they only cost 10 cents apiece and can be housed simply. (i do have a heater and filters and stuff on the rubber maid "tank" of course) I want something similar system for crabs. Even though they are only like $1.25 when you buy like 30 crabs its kinda expensive, is there any other place than a LFS like a market or some place that would have them? And is there any disease chance when feeding to fish? Also i will have 3 figure 8's in with BBG's and i hope that i can put in feeders crabs occasionally. do you think if the short time the ffeder crabs are in theyre theyll nip/ eat bbgs or nip fish?

 

[SirMinion]

We buy crabs from a local fish store and we go for female red crabs as they have the smallest claws. If there's one in the store with a missing claw, so much the better!

Only our largest puffer, Martha gets the crabs and only as a very occasional treat, but she really does love them!

 

[fishfishfish]

u could always feed them crabs with no claws.take pliers and pul on the claw till it pops.i will feed my fig 8s small crayfish but they wont be too big so i dont need to worry.


by the way,claws of crabs come off very easily.there is no pain for the crab(even if that matters since it will get torn apart)due to the fact they are attached with the outer shell.

 

[mrhobzywobz]

Hi, thanks for all the replies!

I keep 3 fig 8's, i didnt think about feeding them crabs, not sure if i could yank their claws off though! im a vegan so i could never bring myself to do it, i'll leave that to the puffers!
I'm going to visit a few fish stores tomorrow armed with a list of live food now. Thanks for the help!

O yeah any tips on the tanin problem??

Ta

 

[SirMinion]

any tips on the tanin problem??

Tannin is actually good for your fish and some people like the tea-coloured water it produces (Including me)
But if it's not to your taste, activated charcoal in the filter will remove it.

Good luck on the live food!

 

[Little Fish]

im kinda reluctant to buy fish from chains stores but i have done it in the past with no problems. I buy small feeder goldies and quarantine them in a rubber maid setup for 2 weeks then occasionally throw some at my predatory fish. I love it because they only cost 10 cents apiece and can be housed simply. (i do have a heater and filters and stuff on the rubber maid "tank" of course) I want something similar system for crabs. Even though they are only like $1.25 when you buy like 30 crabs its kinda expensive, is there any other place than a LFS like a market or some place that would have them? And is there any disease chance when feeding to fish? Also i will have 3 figure 8's in with BBG's and i hope that i can put in feeders crabs occasionally. do you think if the short time the ffeder crabs are in theyre theyll nip/ eat bbgs or nip fish?

I’m not certain if crustaceans will carry fish disease or parasite but I understand your concerns. May be your LFS can order some fiddler crabs for you. The LFS that I bought my F8s and BBGs have both fiddler crabs and crayfishes. However, the crayfish is cheaper, has smaller claws, and seemingly thinner shell. (Ok, may be the main reason I use them is because they are cheaper ) My F8s loves crayfishes and may be you can give it a try.

If you do, I would suggest crayfishes no longer than 1.5 inches because F8s are relatively small. The hunt usually finished within 2 minutes with mine and the whole crayfish is consumed, including the shell. The LFS ran out of small crayfishes last night and I brought home a 2.5 incher. My F8s are about 2 inches in size but they hunted the crayfish without fear. The hunt took over 5 minutes and they used very smart tactics to subdue the bigger prey, although at times it looked kind of cruel. Also, they were having problems opening up the shell and did not eat the shell as they did with the smaller crayfish.

 

[Little Fish]

Tannin is actually good for your fish and some people like the tea-coloured water it produces (Including me)

I like the tea color also, especially with my neon and glo-light tetras. It makes them look brighter. However, I always have the white fuzzy stuff, may be fungi with new bogwood along with tannin. I don't think they are related, but when the white stuff is gone it is also when the bogwood stop giving out tannin.

 

[huntnikk]

Do you have to feed them live food from time to time or can you get away without doing it?

Thanks

BTW I have a small Porcupine Puffer in my tank that I am asking about..

 

[SirMinion]

Do you have to feed them live food from time to time or can you get away without doing it?


BTW I have a small Porcupine Puffer in my tank that I am asking about..

Ah, if it's a porkie you're asking about then you need to ask in the Marine fish section. Marine puffers are a little different in their needs to freshwater species.