Feeding frozen food

[JonnyInThePeaks]

Hi all

Just joined up and looking forward to joining in.

I've had a community tank for about two years now without any major issues, and I've just started up a second tank specifically for pea puffers.

My job has changed a bit just recently and I'm going to have to start having short 3-4 day trips away. The fish in the community tank all live quite happily on flake food (my neighbour will feed them for me), but the puffers only seem to eat live or frozen food.

I was thinking of defrosting a few days' worth of frozen bloodworms, getting rid of the waste, then refreezing them so my neighbour can drop them into the tank while frozen. Would this be a dangerous thing to do for my fish, or would the bloodworms just defrost fast enough in the tank for the puffers not to even notice?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum I really like Puffers I have a trio of Red Eye Red Tails in my tank.

I have to admit I always just chuck in the frozen block and let it melt in the tank while they chase it around. I use the mini ones too. An other idea could be to set up a colony of Ramshorn snails in your community tank and use a snail trap to get the youngsters and transfer them to the puffer tank which would give them a food supply over time.

Wills

 

[JonnyInThePeaks]

Cool, I'll go ahead and freeze up a supply then, thanks Wills.

I never thought of feeding them snails - that's a great idea!

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Wills]

Cool, I'll go ahead and freeze up a supply then, thanks Wills.

I never thought of feeding them snails - that's a great idea!

Thanks for the advice.

Snails are an important food for puffers in the wild they eat a lot of crustaceans like shrimp and snails. They have beaks rather than teeth and unless they get worn down they just grow and grow until they have trouble eating.

What size tank are you going for and how many puffers?

 

[JonnyInThePeaks]

It's a 40ltr with three puffers. It's very well filtrated and heavily planted. They seem happy enough, although have only been in there for a month or so.
I was wondering why I haven't been seeing snails! They normally appear with the plants. I guess the puffers have been gobbling them up.

I do like the snail trap idea though. I'll definitely do that. There are loads of tiny snails in my community tank.