Food for Dwarf puffers

[Jason]

Hi I'm having a little trouble getting my new puffers to eat. I've heard that they will eat ghost shrimp,smail snails or bloodworms.

I've been to BA's and PS and no one seems to have any ghost shrimp or snails I think would be small enough for them to eat.

I have tried bloodworms and they don't seem to like them.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Jason

[Underwater]

Puffers are notorious picky eaters. Almost every puffer I've heard of will only take live food at first.  Try small snails, or small live worms. After a few weeks, try feeding frozen food after a day of fasting. Eventually the puffer should start taking frozen without any problems.

[Underwater]

For the small snails, set up a small tank (2 to 5 gal) and try breeding ramshorn snails.  This shouldn't be difficult at all since so many people have problems with overpopulation.  Feed the small baby snails.

Puffers need snails in their diets to wear their teeth down.

[Mettle]

Depends on the type of puffers... If you're talking dwarf puffers, that's news to me. Mine always ate fine off of bloodworms and brine shrimp. I liked to vary it between the spirulina enriched brine shrimp and the bloodworms. Seemed to be a fine diet for them... They never seemed to go after the ghost shrimp I put in their tank.

[Jason]

I have a little 5.5 gallon I could breed the Ramshorn snails in, do you know of anyone that may have a problem with them and would part with a few?

I'll also try and pick up some brine shrimp this weekend.

I lost one already and don't want to lose anymore. I didn't think they would starve themselves to death.

[Underwater]

Yeah puffers will starve themselves, they're pretty stubborn when it comes to food.

I don't know if I have any ramshorn snails or not, I occassionally have one or two pop up, but I remove them immediately.  If I find any more I'll let you know.

Another thing I should mention, Don't use Malaysian Trumpet Snails. The shells are very hard, harded than most other snails and have been known to break a puffer's teeth.

[Jason]

Thanks for the advice. i'll give it a try

[kennyman]

Was it frozen shrimp you tried? Did you concider hatching brine shrimp in a pop bottle untill you can get a snail collony going?

I have some ramshorn but they are not established enough yet to begin picking out. They are also adapted to brackish water and would probly die quickly if droped right into Fresh Water.

[Jason]

How would I go about hatching the brine shimp in a pop bottle?

[kennyman]

I'm sure there must be some diy people around here with a billion times more exp than me to answer that, but I'll try to tell you what I got.

empty/clean 2L pop bottle with cap.
Cut off bottom inch or two and set aside.
Mix up 1/5 l of brine water. 0.030
Put bottle, cap down into coffee can and fill 2/3 with brine water.
place airline into bottle  and hold inplace by pressing that bottom chunk into the open end.
After a day or so go to Big All's and buy some brine shrimp eggs for $4 and sprinkle a few. Like 1/8 teaspoon in to your newly made hatchery.

I try and keep the air down to a blub . . . . blub . . blub hehehehehe.

getting the artimea out . . now that another story


Can you see my hatchery in the red can here?  http://www.tropicalfishgallery.com/photo-gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10022&pos=-833

[Nelson]

Just introduced two Figure 8 puffers to my brackish tank today and I couldn't give them enough bloodworm or flake