Oysters for gsp's?

[earthling]

Ok this will probably sound idiotic to those of you in the know but I think I've done a dull thing.......On my search for mussels/clams in my local Asda (of which there were none) I noticed live oysters for sale so I bought one ready to feed my 2 gsp's with. The only thing is, what do I do with it? I can't obviously put the whole thing in my tank cos it's quite large and with only 2 fish to munch it, it will either rot or overfeed the fish. Do I have to freeze it to kill germs or boil it to make sure it's cooked before I put it in the tank? Can I leave some meat on the shell because the shell seems pretty hard and my gsp's are only about 2-3 inches long.

[Christemo]

Freeze the oyster to kill of anything that could be in it. Thaw it out in a bowl of tank water, then cut off most of it and refreeze it, then serve the smaller part on the shell. After they are done eating it, take out the shell and freeze it along with the rest of the meat. Do NOT cook it.

[earthling]

Is it safe to de-frost the oyster and then re-freeze it? I won't be giving them food poisoning will I? Once I've done that I put a large chunk of shell in with a bit of meat and then fish the shell back out ready for next time? Kind of like a feeding bowl?

[Christemo]

Carnivores can't get food poisoning.
I'd use it as a feeding bowl, because the GSPs will have to scrape their beak on the shell to get to the meat.

[earthling]

Haha I'm food poisoning mad haha (if it ain't burnt, it ain't safe!!) I'm looking forward to seeing them scrape food off the shell because dadof4 said it's great fun to watch! I've given them bloodworm tonight which they adore (only because the oyster was taking camp in my fridge until i put it in the freezer half an hour ago!) but they're back up by the glass again waving and pointing their fins towards their mouths. I'm reluctant to feed them any more tonight because they had the equivalent of half a chunk of frozen worms and they've got lovely rounded bellies. Do they have a habit of always appearing hungry or could they really still want more grub?

[Christemo]

Puffers have perfected the art of begging (they learned from me).
They're fine. As long as their bellies are nice and round, they are a-ok.

[earthling]

That's ok then cos I was beginning to feel sorry for them!! I have, on more than one occasion (i'm ashamed to admit but it was when I first started out with fish) fed my tropical fish until they've turned green then wondered why they were upside down the morning after!! AAAAWWWWWWWWWW love them....if you could see them now they're even wiping down their bibs and sucking their bellies in hahahahaha crafty little things!! Should I feed them shell things like mussels/oysters etc at every meal time or should I alternate it with frozen worms/krill? For some reason I'm more worried about bringing my puffers up the right way than any other fish I've had!!

[Christemo]

You can alternate if you want to. If they're reallllllyyy begging, I would give them a single blood worm each. It's like a little kid and a lollipop. It'll shut them up for a little bit.

[earthling]

hahahahaha they're greedy little buggers haha nice to see them feeding well though. I put about 3 bloodworms each in (after forgetting about them defrosting in the kitchen so they went to mulch!) They've ate the lot and are STILL calling me!! I just gave them the old verbal warning that 'your eyes are bigger than your belly' and told them theyre not going to starve over the next few hours so they'll have to wait till the morning for more grub. I'm sure they've got ears cos when i told them that they fled hahahahahaha

[earthling]

thanks by the way for all your help xxxxx

[Jase]

Not sure anyone else has done it, but I could only get oysters for my puff once, so I froze it and then whacked it with a hammer a bunch. made plenty of separate hard shell feedings... clams and muscles are much easier.

[earthling]

I bought mussels for my gsp's today but before I had chance to sort some for fish food and some for human, my other half popped in and very kindly ripped half of a shell off and dropped it straight into the tank. Is this likely to do them any harm because I bought the mussels live but they hadn't been frozen. (Mind you they couldnt get enough of it! So much so that I think they overate cos they were having trouble levitating for a few minutes after.)

[Christemo]

The reason we freeze them is to kill any parasites that could be taking a ride on them.
I wouldn't worry because it was only one time.
You just have to make sure not to do that again. Overfeeding=bad.

[earthling]

I'll definitely make sure that there is no potential fish grub left unattended when I go for a wee from now on!! It was a matter of 2 minutes but he won't be doing it again!!! Should I leave their food off tomorrow and start again the day after?