Feeding a F8

[Bonsai_girl]

Just out of interest, are you keeping him in brackish water?

[side19]

ok, i know about the bony teeth but i didn't know if parts of them extended into the throat area. i just added drippings from the filter of my big tank (let some of the water run off into the tank and then swirled it around a little bit) and he appears to be doing just fine. hes acting normals other than a slight fetish for my filter (hangs out under the out let because it forms a sort of cave. and i've used stress zyme before with good results so maybe that time was a fluke. i tried to get my hands on some bio spira but can't seem to find it, and i looked on the marine labs website and its not even on there. i'm planning on doing regular frequent water changes so that the water stays pristine until the tank is truly cycled and then plan to do weekly or bi-weekly changes after that. and yes i'm keeping him in brackish water (used the same kind of salt that the store told me they used for his original tank.)

[Bonsai_girl]

Good that you're keeping him in brackish - what sort of salt did the store say they used?

[side19]

they said they used tonic aquarium salt. so i used the same. i've found they it can work for short periods of time but should be replace with marine salt as soon as possible, going out to get some asap.

[Bonsai_girl]

Ok cool - good you know about marine salt for brackish

[side19]

thanks so much for the help so far. i'll keep you updated on how he's doing, hope he lives out a long healthy life in his new home.

[Bonsai_girl]

Definitely - will keep an eye open for his progress

[bazil323]

Don't worry too much if he doesn't eat them right away. It took my F8 like 3 weeks to realize that the live ghost shrimp were edible. Then he slurped them right down.

Also, if the fish is new, they need time to settle in. The more interesting you make your tank, the better. Plants, decor (castles, ships, etc), rocks. Lots of variety and varying heights and widths.

[coldmachineUK]

i'm having trouble feeding my figure eight as well. i have about a dozen live snails in teh tank with him (those little nusince snails that sometimes hitchhike on live plants) and with in his first hour he saw one floating adn took a single bite out of it and then hasn't touched any of the others. he doesn't seem to swim around the bottom of the tank very much and seems to stick to teh edges of the tank (the snails all moved to the middle for some reason) and i'm worried he won't eat them. any tips to get him to start hunting for them or get him to notice them?

As an aside, how come you're using a photo of my very first F8 (LMPM, or Little Mister Puffer Man as he was known) as your profile pic? I didn't know he was *that* famous

[side19]

haha you mean as my avatar? i couldn't figure out how to resize a pic of eight ball and just tried to find a picture the right size and shape on google. haha. i liked the pic also so i figured i'd use it. haha didn't know it was your puffer.

[coldmachineUK]

That's ok! I just did a double-take and had a bit of a heart stopping moment: he was my very first F8 and sadly died from unknown causes back in 2006. I'll never forget him just because he was my first puffer, and he had beautiful markings to boot. So, it was a bit of a surprise and a blast from the past seeing him as your avatar!

[taureandragon76]

What SG are you keeping him at? Do you have a hydrometer/refractometer?

I have a 20g setup to breed crayfish, 10g snail breeder and buy fresh market clams and bloodworms. When I put a cray in there both of my F8's go nuts over it. As said above feeding a puffer is not expensive at all. Not sure where in the world you are but getting a 5g or 10g tank for breeding snails is really cheap especially if you find a used one. Then just get some ramshorn snails pop them in then you got food for your puff. Remember also to not feed them a snail that is bigger than the puff's eye.

[aprilo]

Keep an eye open for a sunken stomach - if he gets that you'll need to treat for internal parasites.

realllly stupid question. what exactly does a sunken stomach look like? does that mean like really rounded? i just fed my gsp about an hour ago, and i just looked at him and his tummy looks very round. maybe i just overfed him? and how would i know if he has IPs?