What Kind of Snail

Neardark · Post by **Neardark** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:19 am

What kind of snails can I feed my green spotted puffers and what ones should I avoid.

look at the article on feeding but could not find my answer, thanks for any help

marksrush · Post by **marksrush** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:45 am

Pond snails are good, as are ramshorns. Malaysian trumpet snails have shells that are too hard (except maybe the young ones, I don't know) so stay away from them. Really big snails will just have parts bitten off and/or chunks taken out of their flesh, which is not desirable in my opinion.

Neardark · Post by **Neardark** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:58 am

what about the ones found on real plants, its just to stop their teeth from over growing, will cockles work just aswell??

edmlfc1 · Post by **edmlfc1** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:00 am

Yes it will. Leave the meat on the shell and they will scrape their teeth to get the meat which in turns wears down the teeth.

Neardark · Post by **Neardark** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:50 am

the cockles frozen so once I have defrosted them, should I open the cockle so they can get to the meat or let them work their way in to the meat.

Post by **Dadof4** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:05 am

I usually give them to mine on the half shell. I open them and scrape most of the meat off, leaving just enough for him to eat. The main part I cut up into quarters and freeze on a plate for easy use later.

marksrush · Post by **marksrush** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:10 pm

Dadof4 wrote:I usually give them to mine on the half shell. I open them and scrape most of the meat off, leaving just enough for him to eat. The main part I cut up into quarters and freeze on a plate for easy use later.

That's what I do, too. It always takes my puffers a while to find out where the fleshy part is, and until they do, they bite on the shell.

lilgirlkat · Post by **lilgirlkat** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 5:35 pm

sooo.. these trumpet snails... how *bad* are they?

The lfs just gave me a TON of them to feed my little guys...

Post by **puffertt77** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 6:56 pm

Hey Neardark

I've just got myself a Mbu and SAP and was also looking for snails to feed them (Snails are the Mbus favourate:)

I checked my lfs and they didn't have many so I did a search on ebay for Ramshorn Snails and there's a lot of people selling them on there

I bought 10 large (english 5p size) Red Ramshorn Snails for £4 and now have them in a baby fish net box hanging at the top of my Tropical Fish Tank

I put a carrot in there and they are all happily munching on it now. I also put some round flat smooth stones in there for them to lay their eggs on (they breed very quickly).

I also bought some Crickets which the Mbu loves, I just keep them in the plasic box they came in but I put it under the tank tube light in the lid and feed them letuce and orange segments to keep them hydrated

pinkfloydpuffer · Post by **pinkfloydpuffer** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 6:58 pm

I've used trumpet snails by pre-crushing them. The smaller pieces help so that the puffs won't break their teeth on it.

Post by **puffertt77** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:00 pm

lilgirlkat wrote:sooo.. these trumpet snails... how *bad* are they?

The lfs just gave me a TON of them to feed my little guys...

I don't think trumpet snails are bad for the Puffers, my Mbu cannot crush their shells yet (he's just a baby) but he still crushes the openning to the shell and sucks out the snail

lilgirlkat · Post by **lilgirlkat** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:27 pm

ha good. cuz I have TONS of them now.

The guys at the LFS hooked me up.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 12:22 am

Larger puffers can crush MTS into dust. Marine puffers, used to the much harder shells of marine snails, shouldn't have a problem either.

Post by **Myaj** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:44 pm

I agree with Nick, it depends on the puffer. Paris is a marine burrfish with crusher plates instead of "teeth" and she loves MTS snails.

I've had SAP's and Figure 8's break teeth and the MTS were always suspected though. A broken tooth isn't necessarily serious, unless it breaks off at the gumline and gets infected, or of course if the fish now has crooked teeth and can't eat properly (a trimming can even that out). But its too risky for me to try to do it with smaller puffers, I'd only give MTS to the big ones. Heck, I've had MTS that I couldn't crush with a hammer on a cinderblock, they were that hard...

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