Alternative livefood sources

[SirMinion]

Our Puffers are regularly fed on frozen cockles, mussels, prawns, krill & bloodworm with a treat of live river shrimp once a week.

They are never more active and eager to feed than when they are hunting live food so we would like to extend the live menu.

Unfortunately, around here the availability of live foods from pet & fish stores is very limited so we've been thinking about other sources and would like some other people's opinions.

1) Live Waxworms -actually a moth catapiller and sold as a reptile food, soft & squishy.

2) Live Mealworms - again, reptile food, nice crunchy exoskeleton.

3) Live Blofly maggots - from a bait shop.

4) Live Freshwater Shrimp - self caught from streams that are the runoff from pristine water meadows, not agricultural land.

5) Live shore crabs (small)- from the same streams, but in the tidal waters nearer the estuary outfall.

6) Live terrestrial snails -collected from clean areas where they couldn't have eaten snail poisons.

Anyone foresee any problems with these ideas?

 

[Zombies]

Mine love Crickets

 

[impur]

I don't forsee any problems with the critters listed as long as you be sure to clean them first so as not to pollute your tank.

Another options:

Snails!!!!

 

[TorPeteO]

As long as you're confident that the sources you get these new menu items from are reliable, I don't foresee any problems with it. I'd say mealworms might be your best from a retailer, and shrimp from your estuary seem like they'd be delightful for your shrimp.

Have fun.

 

[SirMinion]

Another option
Snails!!!!

Well, yes, obviously.

Our puffers get aquatic snails whenever we can find them, but we rarely can. Our LFSs all have snail free tanks and our attempts to breed them was totally unsuccesful.

But what about terrestrial snails? If collected from 'clean' sites, would they be suitable? I'll add them to the 'ideas list' at the top of this thread.

 

[Zombies]

Hmmm I wonder why you havn't had luck breeding them. I put a couple of snails in a small critter keeper, added conditioned water and lettuce and they bred pretty fast.

 

[a1wonder]

I have bin in a little jar close to the window and throw in a bit of food from time to time and they seem to have no problem replacing those eatten by Tragdor

 

[CFC]

I would avoid using live foods collected from the estury in case of pollution, with the crabs and shrimps being filter feeders anything present in the water will also be in the animals and could poison your fish, shrimps collected from the freshwater stream should be fine.

All the other foods should be fine.

 

[SirMinion]

I would avoid using live foods collected from the estury in case of pollution, with the crabs and shrimps being filter feeders anything present in the water will also be in the animals and could poison your fish

Yes, I had considered that, I won't risk it then.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[ossypete]

george used to get a treat of golden apple snails when my local shop had them in i have a large lodge at the back of my house so i am just considering getting some pond snails for him to try. the lodge has a good dlean supply of water through it so i think they will be ok. maybe send you a few to try if your interested mate ???

 

[SirMinion]

george used to get a treat of golden apple snails when my local shop had them in

I've often wondered about apple smails as a food source and I've asked several times if they'd be ok, but never had a definate answer.

I've heard that they are poisonous, which is why they are such bright colours.

How often did George eat them?

 

[ossypete]

he used to get them whenever they were in the shop .Used to try and feed every few weeks as a treat , got a bit expensive though !

 

[Dane]

yeah, it's been harder to find live food at lfs.

 

[Arfie]

Our puffers get aquatic snails whenever we can find them, but we rarely can. Our LFSs all have snail free tanks and our attempts to breed them was totally unsuccesful.

Do you want some? I've got bloody hundreds of the things , another 40 or so binned tonight with water change. They're all small as big uns can't hide from me , but I'll put you some in an envelope if you want.

PM me if you want a few.

Arfie

 

[SirMinion]

Thanks Arfie, check your PMs