The Puffer Forum

Hi,
Can I check..
When I rescued my two GSP the pet shop had told the last owner to feed them one cube of blood worm every other day, which is what he did.
When I went back to the same shop and bought frozen shell-on foods I was told the same, "Alternate the food and feed every other day.", again this is exactly what I have been doing.
They are about 2" tip of tail to tip of nose, is every other day OK, everything I have read says every day until they are older?

One other thing, when I go to the tank they get quite excited and greet me, the larger one (also more dominant one, can chase the smaller one away during feeding) can get scared, move the side of the tank and swim up and down as if he is looking at himself in the glass, this often culminates in him doing a splash at the top of the tank. The smaller one will simply blink and follow my face and finger on the front of the tank.

I should add, he only does the swimming up and down when I'm at the tank, other times they just explore the tank so it's not boredom.

When they see me holding the food dish, the story is different and they both act the same..... begging

One of them took a nip out of my hand yesterday while was moving some weed, made me jump....

Second week of adding marine salt and at .004 now and they are happy and parameters good.

Kudos, I'm sure others will chime in, but I have always been more concerned with the look of the stomach than exactly which day I feed them. If they have plump little guts sticking out, you should wait for it to go down, but if it is flat by the next day, I have also been following the guidline of feeding juveniles every day with at least one fast day per week. It sounds like they are still pretty young if they are 2" tip to tip. I have figure 8s, but I feel that they are similar enough in this regard to offer my two cents. Like I said though, I expect more experienced GSP owners will comment...

Thanks for that, They still have a slightly round tummy 24 hours after feeding, they certainly don't look thin and they have only been fed every other day for several months now, I assume the pet shop did too (as that is what they told both the last owner and me to do) so it is probably all they know?

I just don't trust or believe a thing the shop says, they got so much wrong with these guys and how they told the last owner to look after them.

This is them 24 hours after feeding, normally I would not feed again for another 24 hours.

If they are staying plump every other day is fine. You can give treats occasionally on non feed days but see how you go

While on this topic, I have heard that for F8s, krill with the shell on is enough to wear down their beaks, has anyone else found that to be true? I still feed mine snails, but keeping the snails going is proving to be tough at times...

Thanks for that, sounds a good approach.
I don't often feed blood worm now but was thinking the cubes are quite big in comparison to the cockle I feed, I might break them in half and feed over two days instead of all at once.
I might even make a very small portion of bloodworm the treat on non food days because its very easy and a small amount will keep interest up.
I'm also setting up a ramshorn tank after Christmas so I will have a good supply of snails soon.

frozen food should be defrosted before feeding
after defrosting, it can be soaked in liquid fish vitamins

eieio wrote:frozen food should be defrosted before feeding
after defrosting, it can be soaked in liquid fish vitamins

Absolutely, always defrosted, drained and rinsed.

ZiggyAnderson wrote:While on this topic, I have heard that for F8s, krill with the shell on is enough to wear down their beaks, has anyone else found that to be true? I still feed mine snails, but keeping the snails going is proving to be tough at times...

Not true, not close to being hard enough to wear a puffers teeth down

When I first got my puffer I fed every other day but I noticed that she wasn't doing so well, her stomach would sink in and her colors would dull without a feeding every day. When I started feeding daily her colors brightened and she became much more active. I don't know if my puffer has an especially fast metabolism or something. Her favorite foods are pond snails and freeze dried krill. She gets so happy when I put pond snails in her tank, it's adorable. <3 Sometimes I feed her a meal worm for variety and she seems okay with this. She's not crazy about blood worms either.

You still should skip 1 day/week for fasting.