Best food for picky dwarf puffers?

[Synirr]

I just got a pair of dwarf puffers two days ago, and so far they're the only fish I've ever owned that turned down frozen bloodworms! It may just be that they're not entirely used to their tank yet, but they only ate about one bloodworm each today, which isn't nearly enough... any suggestions of foods that might tempt their tastebuds? What do you guys feed your dwarf puffers as a staple food?
I tossed about 20 baby trumpet snails in the tank too in hopes they'd be interested, but so far they've just ignored them

 

[Dorkhedeos]

try crushing one snail. once they know its food, they will start looking for them

 

[SirMinion]

It's early days, puffers are notorious sulkers and you've only had them a couple of days. It's a good sign that they've eaten at least something, so be patient.

And be careful feeding trumpet snails to puffers, they have uncommonly hard shells are can damage the fish's teeth if bitten.

 

[Torrean]

I have some pond snails and there shells are surprisingly soft. They also breed prolifically. You might want to try them. Oh you may want to set up a snail tank to repopulate your puffer tank. Minion says that puffers will eat the snails faster than they reporduce.

 

[gaya]

my puffers are spoiled and will only readily eat live worms. sometimes they'll eat snails. I put in tiny baby snails from my planted tanks. if they don't see their food moving they show no interest. Though you probably could get your guys used to frozen food.

 

[OoHeatheroO]

Try feeding them frozen brine shrimp or live baby brine shrimp if you can get it, not much though, dont want to clog up the tank too bad ;-)

Also, they absolutely LOVE snails and they need them as part of their diet. I noticed they only started goin for frozen bloodworms when they are adults.

Go to your lfs and ask for some pest snails that they have in their tanks, i'm sure they would GLADLY give them to you.

Make sure you do NOT get black or gold mystery snails though, they get too big and their shells are too hard. Good luck!

 

[MAM]

You may have some spoiled brats there that will only take live foods. That's how mine were. I had to trick them when I used frozen. What I would do is thaw out the food first, then I would dump it over the bubbles from the airstone. The current would make them "move", attracting the attention of the puffers. That was the only way I could ever get those little buggers to eat. Once it stopped moving, they'd ignore it. I miss those little personalities.

 

[Synirr]

Go to your lfs and ask for some pest snails that they have in their tanks, i'm sure they would GLADLY give them to you.

Thanks but no thanks, I've got plenty of those already

My guess is they're just not used to the tank yet... they just swim around together and completely ignore any food floating past

Edit: Yay, I finally found something they'll eat! Live white worms! They ate 8 of them tonight. This may be more of a problem than a solution though, since I don't know how strong my white worm culture is. I'm not sure if the worms have been multiplying, but I certainly have a wonderful crop of fungus growing in there . It's just soil and rotten oatmeal, but it smells like fresh cow manure