Hi
HooDude
Glad to hear that the little girl is doing better
How many bloodworms should he eat? I usually pop out a cube into a cup with some tank water and just give him a few once a day in the evening, and then feed the rest to my 2 chocolate ryukin. Should I be feeding him more? And where can I get ghost shrimp???
Sounds like you are doing fine on the feeding. I use their belly shape as a feeding indicator, I try to regulate their feeding so that they are always a little bit plump (they get really fat and lumpy after eating, but by the time I feed them again they are plesently plump). Mine will gorge themselves on as much as they can get, so I have to be careful not to overfeed (they can get constipated and die), but they all seem to take the bloodworms in, then spit them out 2 or 3 times before eating them.
I buy my ghost shrimp at the lfs whenever I see them , about 50 cents each, but the puffers don't always eat them, sometimes they just kill them and move on leaving dead shrimp all over the tank.
Are my shrimp bad because they thawed?
I wouldn't trust them, they are probably bad
Oh and what kind of light spectrum would he like the best? I have the option of putting in a Marine-Glo bulb, which is pure Actinic spectrum, but I think it would fry the plants... I don't suppose he cares about light
I find they like different types of light at different times, I have a 15 watt light bulb on one side of the tank and a blue bulb on the other side, sometimes they will hang out on the bright side, sometimes in shadow.
Anything else I can do to really improve her (its female) morale? What makes a puffer really happy? Caves? Rocks? I can't seem to do anything about my pH which is stuck at 9.0, but shes ok living in it so far...
As Elisabeth said, definately give her a cave, or a few caves, some broad leafed plants (plastic are fine) and maybe a nice piece of driftwood. I find Dwarfs like to have many different places to hide or sleep. You might even want to get her a couple of friends. And something else you could try is get her a toy, I use odd plant parts floating freely in the tank and my puffers play in them all the time, they ride them swirking through the current...looks like great fun.
ph of 9.0 is pretty high, but puffers are pretty forgiving of water parameters, as long as it's clean.
Will they eat dried bloodworms?
Probably not, if it don't wiggle or squirm they are not interrested usually. In a pinch you could soak some dried bloodworms in water before adding them, so that they swirl around in the tank rather than float, and she might eat them.
HTH