supgirl wrote:I feel your pain GSP Fan, I have a Toby (Valentini) too and she has been such a joy these past 6 weeks, but man oh man is she a picky eater. She comes to the front anytime I walk by the tank and fans her tail and gives me those big blue puppy dog eyes.Any other foods I'm overlooking for a toby/smaller puffer? I remember worms being mentioned, which I can try, I'll just have to see where I can get them first. Just expected her to eat a bit better or be more aggressive with food than she is. Also expected her to eat enough at a time to see her stomach get rounded. I've got a clam thawing in the fridge so that'll be my next try tomorrow.
I have tried raw shrimp, clams, squid, silver slides, live worms, snails, ghost shrimp (numerous live ones in the tank with her and unless I catch one and feed it to her, she pretty much leaves them alone). I have hung sea weed in her tank and she swims up, looks at it and swims away. I've tried frozen peas and she will occasionally pick at it, but the ghost shrimp enjoy them. I've tried not feeding her for a couple days, but feel so guilty when she keeps coming to the front.
I think she mostly wants a buffet. She will eat 4-6 bites of any of the items above and swim off, do a couple laps and come back for more, but unless it is something completely different, she'll look at me with this pissy look and swim off. This goes on a couple times before I've had enough and put everything away. BUT if I give her brine shrimp or mysis shrimp, she will eat for as long as I will feed her. Not sure what to think....
It definitely sounds like we are in a similar situation, though I believe your Valentini may be eating better than my Solandri. I've seen her take mysis and squid into her mouth but I've also seen her spit both back out, not sure how much of either she has ate. I was feeding a little of both on the days I fed hoping to get her used to those foods while I obtained others, also because my other stock will eat them as well. Then theres always the algae sheet on the days I feed as well.
She is very outgoing now, where at the beginning she was quite shy, didn't take her long to open up. She also is up a bit at night now, I see her swimming around quite often as I'm usually up and have tried feeding at night as well. The table shrimp one night, just pecked at it some but that was it. She did eat a small piece of krill one night when I held it in front of her with forceps. There are snails, hermits, and two peppermint shrimp in the tank she has yet to eat. One of the shrimp even climbed on the krill that night and she did not seem to notice. Odd.
I have not tried ghost shrimp, none of my LFSs carry them, I'd have to see what they could order. I'm more worried about some crunchier foods though. I've got some ramshorn snails, set up a tank for breeding them (back when I was going to get a GSP). I hadn't tried them with her and wasn't sure if there would be much of an issue feeding freshwater snails to a marine puffer.
I'll be trying clam tomorrow and will look into getting worms.
Like I've said, I just really thought she'd be more aggressive with eating. My clowns and wrasse are much more interested in food than she is.
I've went 2-3 days often without trying foods as thats been my feeding schedule and that hasn't helped with her eating habits either.
That's where I got stung, too. I totally had forgotten about that toxic fin.
(excuse the quality, phone camera does not react well to actinics. did some editing to help)
