What should I feed my puffer?

[becks]

Hello,

I have just bought the most goregous little south american puffer (colomesus), but havent managed to get him to eat anything yet. I have read up that I need to give him snails, but hes only tiny and the guy in the shop said hes probably too small to be able to eat them yet.
(bit of background... i had to return a ghost shrimp who grew huge and hunted everything, and eventually killed a cory Before I got her I had a HUGE snail problem, but she kept them in check, so at the moment there are only a few largeish snails in the tank, but I am expecting lots of little ones to come back soon.)
He showed no interest in the flake food I feed my tetras, or some freeze dried daphnia. I crushed a snail for him and left it on a piece of wood, but he ignored that and pretty soon my pentazona barbs ate it (theyre new too... they seem to eat everything!!) The shop was all out of live food when I went, I will try to get some soon.

Any suggestions as to what food is best for a tiny little puffer?

Thanks, Becks

 

[Bomag]

you could try putting bloodworm in with him and he should eat it mine used to love them my humpback puffer eats white bait or shrimps hope this is of some use



ps: i tried everything with my smaller puffers to keep there teth down and to no avail they just grew and grew i tryed snails and cockles in shells both were no good hope you get on better than me

 

[Tempestuousfury]

I've got a pretty small dwarf puffer. It eats bloodworms and brine shrimp without problems (though once it eats a few bloodworms it tries to eat some of the longer strands).

Go to your local petstore and ask for them to give you some baby snails. They gave me 6. Though the puffer didn't eat any, I've got 2 rather big snails and a bucket full of baby snails waiting to be fed to my puffer.

 

[Lithril]

Bloodworm is definately the way to go for getting them eating, I havent found anything yet that won't touch it, once you've got them eating that its not too difficult to ween them onto other feeds.

I found with mine that after a few days they learnt that me going up to the tank generally meant food (my colomesus are actually eating out of my fingers now), once they get to the stage that they start "hunting" just by your presence being there its easy to fool them into eating whatever gets dropped into the tank

 

[BlueDSM]

Hit the grocery store fish section, and pick up raw shrimps, scallops, crabs etc. My puffer loves tiger shrimp more than any other food - even more than bloodworms or brine.

Just remove the shell, skin it, and chop it up into bite size peices... The white colour of the meat gets their attention as well.

Either way, if the Puffers don't like "people food", you can always eat it instead

 

[appleblossom]

I feed my puffer frozen bloodworm, and occasionally live if I can get it. As Lithril says, everything loves bloodworm!
I also feed my puffer snails that I breed in a small tank, he wasnt interested at first but watching them crawling up the glass finally got his attention and now he loves going on snail hunts

he also likes cockle in the shell and has a thoroughly fun time shredding it with his little teeth, although again, he wasnt interested at first, after a few attempts he got the idea that it was food

 

[Ti.]

I fed mine freeze dried BLOOD worms.
you could hear the CRUNCH everytime he bit into one.

 

[becks]

Cheers guys,
I got some frozen bloodworm today and now his little belly is all fat and rounded

I've now got a 'multipack' with the bloodworms, mosquito larvae, daphnia and something else, I cant remember what! Still nothing crunchy though... I managed to find two snails in my tank and have put them in a conatiner with some lettuce, but no babies just yet. Ive read cockles are good... but all the ones I've seen are about the same size as my puff! I'll have another look next time I'm at the fish counter anyway.

 

[StingrayKid]

I would definately try Beefheart. You can buy it at the pet store and my figure 8 puffer goes NUTS when I drop some in. Try that.

 

[SirMinion]

I would definately try Beefheart. You can buy it at the pet store and my figure 8 puffer goes NUTS when I drop some in. Try that.

The fishkeeping community is very divided on this, but it is generally consisdered a bad idea to feed mammal protein to captive fish...
Unfortunately, I can't remember why.

 

[Lithril]

I THINK its to do with their ability to digest it... or lack of ability, I feed it to mine but probably only 1 every 2-3 weeks, mainly as a change.