Puffer Food

[DopeyAlex]

Hey all,

Was wanding if you could all tell me what you feed your puffers, and what you think the best foods are for them.

I am currently feeding feeding my red eyed puffer (Gizmo) on snails, guppy fry and blood worm. The only thing with the blood worm, is that quite a few of the other fish in the tank get a lot of it before the puffer does.

Cheers
Alex

 

[AMS]

First off, you puffer needs more variety in his diet. Most people base their puffer diets around their ever-growning teeth by feeding hard-shelled crustacean foods such as shell-on krill, cockle in shell, prawns, snails, etc. etc. To supplement the hard shelled foods items most puffers are fed basic frozen or freeze dried foods such as brine shrimp, shrimp pellets, bloodworm, tubifex, squid, and so forth. Most puffers wont eat prepared foods, but if they do they can make a good supplement to their current diet.

 

[JJ1234567]

where do you get these hard shelled foods?

 

[Flumpus]

I feed my figure 8 brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, bloodworm, snails, and live ghost shrimp. I've tried freeze dried bloodworm and he just looks at me like "I'm not gonna eat that, give me some of the good stuff."

 

[Dave Legacy]

I feed mysis, whole cockle, whole mussel, krill, and clams-on-a-half shell.

 

[Fella]

I feed bloodworms to my smaller puffers and cockles and mussels to my larger ones. Cockle in shell is great for my red eye puffer.


Also, Red eye puffers aren't brackish, they're totally freshwater.

 

[DopeyAlex]

Cheers for the replies everyone. Sorry, i posted it in the wrong forum.

So can you just get cockles and different shrips from your LFS???

 

[AMS]

So can you just get cockles and different shrips from your LFS???

Usually, but it all depends on what that particular store stocks. Some stores only stock basic frozen foods such as bloodworms and brine shrimp. Call around before you go to the LFS because chances are good that they wont have cockle in shell and other hard shelled foods.

 

[DopeyAlex]

Alright. Cheers for the advice mate

 

[SirMinion]

Our various puffer species are fed:

• live or frozen bloodworm (fish store)
• live or frozen brine shrimp (fish store)
• live or frozen daphnia (fish store)
• live jumbo bloodworm (fish store)
• live glassworms (fish store)
• live earthworms (pet store or bait shop)
• live river shrimp (fish store)
• live red crab (fish store)
• live aquatic snails (fish store, friends with ponds, garden centres)
• live mealworms (pet store)
• live waxworms (pet store)
• live or canned crickets (pet store)
• live locusts (pet store)
• frozen krill (fish store)
• frozen cooked prawns in the shell or without shell (supermarket, market or fishmonger)
• fresh or frozen cooked cockle in the shell or without shell (supermarket, market or fishmonger)
• fresh or frozen cooked mussell in the shell (supermarket, market or fishmonger)
• fresh cooked whelk in the shell (supermarket, market or fishmonger)
• fresh or frozen edible crab legs & claws (supermarket, market or fishmonger)
• fresh or frozen peas (seriously!) (supermarket)

 

[petpirate]

Hi Sir Minion.. I remember you from TPF... How is Martha getting on?

I have an illustrated menu of GSP food:
shells -- cockles, mussels:

Their favourite.... whole shrimp:
Before:

During:

After:

 

[JJ1234567]

does anyone elses puffer eat flake food? my GSP is musceling his way in amonst the mollies when I feed the flake and taking his fair share. Just wondering if this was unusal.

 

[AMS]

does anyone elses puffer eat flake food? my GSP is musceling his way in amonst the mollies when I feed the flake and taking his fair share. Just wondering if this was unusal.

Never had any of my puffers eat flakes, but they will eat pellets and sticks.

 

[nmonks]

One of my South American puffers seems to like frozen peas, the other two don't. I get the impression with SAPs at least there is quite a bit of variation. None of them eats mussels, and nor do my red-tail puffers. On the other hand, live Daphnia and frozen bloodworms seem to be very popular.

One thing the SAPs went wild for that was unexpected were the swimmerets on North Atlantic prawns. They don't eat the rest of skeleton, just the swimmerets. Must be particularly yummy!

Cheers,

Neale

 

[SirMinion]

Hi Sir Minion.. I remember you from TPF... How is Martha getting on?

Hi PetPirate, yes I remember you too!
Martha's fine, thanks for asking, those are some lovely GSPs you have there!

Neal: Our Dwarfs like peas and our Figure eight will eat them sometimes too.

AMS: Our Dwarf Puffers will sometimes eat flake.