Frustration with Congo puffer picky eating

[Donna_G]

I can't get him to eat anything but river shrimp!!!! He recognises the net I use and gets very excited, even goes in the net and eats the shrimp before I can release them. So I decided to switch to earthworms. He got excited, ended up in the net but completely ignored the worm!!!!!

This has been happening every night, I even dangled the worm in the tank with my fingers(above water). The worms can't do anymore, they wiggle, they climb over him and almost put theirselves in his mouth

I would really appreciate some suggestions as to what to do, as not sure if a diet of just shrimps is healthy for him.

[bertie 83]

As long as you are gutfilling the shrimp with bloodworm and veggies etc they will do just fine till he decides to eat other things, just keep at it he will come round

[Pufferpunk]

You've got to let him get hungry. Mine only gets fed 2x/week, since he's such a sedentary fish. After he's nice & hungry, take a shrimp tail & bounce it in front of his face on the end of a thread. You need TONS of patience.

[Donna_G]

I've been beaten by my puffer He's way more stubborn than me I gave in last night and fed him some river shrimp as it had been nearly 2 weeks of me dangling worms near him. Boy was he happy, he gloated for ages after
What else can I do, how long is too long for him not to eat? And where have all the fishmongers gone? All I've found in the shops so far are cooked prawns

[Terrance]

Keep trying. Leave the worm in the tank for 1/2 hour with the lights off. I used to let the worm crawl all over my congo's face lol! He finally took a bite after doing it a few times.

[Donna_G]

Drum roll please!!! He ate some king prawn I cut it into 4 pieces and was waving 1 about with the feeding tong, only took him a couple of minutes before striking. Am gonna leave worms for a while as maybe he just doesn't like them
He ate just under half of the prawn, his underside had quite a lump. Is this enough? Do I need to soak the food with vitamins? What make?
Sorry for all the questions, there's not a huge amount of info about Congo's on the net
Thanks

[bertie 83]

Yes definately soak in vitamins. Would be worth finding out what you can get in your area

[suvattii2012]

I would try with lobworms instead of earthworms, sometimes my suvattii won't even move for smaller earthworms unless there a decent size. When i put a huge lobworm in he goes crazy and shoots up out the sand and gets in while the worms still floating down.

[Pufferpunk]

That's fantastic! Mine will only eat earthworms. Soak in FW Vita-Chem or Zoa vits.

[Donna_G]

Thanks Pufferpunk, found vita-chem fresh on eBay