Feeding DPs Snails

[Deltaphi]

I was wondering if I could use ramshorn snails as a DPs staple diet (80-90%) and feed bloodworms more occasionally? As snails are their staple diet in the wild, I'm assuming that this would be acceptable from a nutrition point of view..?
If so, how many snails should I drop in per day (per puffer)?

thanks!

[Pufferpunk]

It's gonna be difficult to keep up with that many, as they will only eat them as large as the puffer's eye & that's tiny~ They ight slurp them out of their shell if bigger or you could crush them.

[Deltaphi]

It's gonna be difficult to keep up with that many, as they will only eat them as large as the puffer's eye & that's tiny~ They ight slurp them out of their shell if bigger or you could crush them.

But if I could keep up with the demand and they did eat them, how often/how much should I feed them?

[pollypuff]

I tried breeding ramshorn snails for my 3 pea puffers but simply could not keep up. I could throw a dozen ramshorn in and they would eat them all within a few hours, if even that long. A few months ago my LPS was clearing their tanks of extra MTS and gave me about 50 of them. I threw them all in my puffer tank and this seems to be working well. The Puffers can't seem to get past the trap door of the largest MTS but they have no problem with the smaller ones. I can tell the MTS are breeding by the number of tiny empty shells I find. I always expect to find tons of MTS when I do water changes and stir the sand but I'm always surprised at how few I see considering the number I started with. I think this method is good for them to search out the snails as snacks but I honestly don't think this would work long term as the main food source.

I feed them every other day some version of frozen food (bloodworms, mosquito larvae, daphnia, mysis shrimp) and when I have them, live daphnia. These little guys are eating machines!

[TheStig]

How many puffers are you planning to feed? Most likely you'll find your breeding stock will have problems keeping up w/ demand in the long run.

I have a snail breeding tank w/ 8 - 9 large ramshorns that are prolific layers, and a bunch of babies of various sizes... but if snails were the primary diet, I'd run out of feeder snails really quick. I have just 2 DPs.

I throw in 4 - 5 snails 2 - 3 times a week to keep a sustainable population going. But even if you have a snail infested tank, it wldn't last long... ramshorns are just easy targets for a voracious, eagle-eyed hunter like a DP.

[Deltaphi]

Okay, thanks for the advice! I'll just stick to occasional snail feeding.

[Hillehaus]

I fed mine primarily frozen bloodworms after a painful weaning process from live, with some snails mixed in during the week. I found if I put more than a couple in the tank at once, even if I hid them all, all that would happen is they would stuff them selves to near splitting in one sitting. There were no survivor snails in my tank.

[TheStig]

Haha @ Hilllehaus "stuff themselves to near splitting in one sitting". No truer words have ever been spoken about the DPs.

Before I knew better, I used to feed them till they looked like little blimps, and even when I'm done feeding, they'll still continue to putter up and down the tank, begging for more. It's a miracle I didn't cause my female to pop...

[dapug]

I've been a member of this forum for months, but only last week got myself a couple of DP's. I had literally hundreds of pond snails starting to overtake the tank, so I figured I know just the solution! Yep, they've been eating like crazy. I wonder if they are overfeeding in fact. Within 1 week, shells are beginning to litter the bottom, all sizes from smaller than a BB to larger than a pea. I doubt even with 100+ snails that breed like crazy that they will keep up with demand!

I also have some larger Nerite snails (marble size) that so far are untouched.