Feed live mussels to puffer?

[katty]

I bought some mussels from the grocery store to feed my baby fahaka and I was wondering what the best way of preparing them would be. When they were at the store, they were kept on ice and apparently they're live. Is there a way of confirming that they're safe and sanitary to feed to my puffer and should I open them up before putting it in my tank? Also, they're pretty big compared to my fish so should I cut them up first or leave them in their shells? Thanks guys!

[LilGreenPuffer]

These need to either be frozen or quarantined for at least a week.

To feed, scrape out most of the meat, leaving a meal-sized portion stuck on, and then freeze the rest of the meat for later feedings. You can use the same shell as a serving dish again.

[katty]

Awesome. Thank you! I think I'll freeze them. I cant keep them alive then actually cut them up. *shudder*

[LilGreenPuffer]

Urgh. Me neither.

[katty]

I dont blame you! I feel bad enough feeding him live shrimp and snails. It's rather cute how vicious they can be though.

[Nick]

Smack them with a hammer, rinse the juice and shell splinters off, and in they go! Any shellfish I get that are considered high enough grade for raw human consumption, anyway, I'll let slip on QT/freezing. Feeding pond snails or ramshorns doesn't bother me at all, nor shellfish in general... but live crayfish, kinda hurts. One of my first pets was a cray, and the puffers don't kill crayfish very fast. If I absolutely HAVE to feed a cray(has happened a couple times that snails and other good crunch was totally unavailable) I quickly remove it's head and smash it's brains in one motion so the poor thing doesn't suffer. They keep moving for plenty long after that to look like food for the puffers.

[LilGreenPuffer]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWW.

[katty]

That sounds so gruesome! Haha. Thanks for the advice on the mussels Nick! I've currently got them in the freezer and they've been there overnight. I didnt find the post on the clams until after I posted this (sorry!) and I did what was said in there. I put them in a small container with salt water and sure enough, they opened up and the water was just disgusting afterwards. About half were still alive and the other half were dead. I'll go ahead and have my boyfriend smash them up before feeding them. (I just cant do it myself!) I've had pet crayfish in the past before too but I never really bonded with them. I haven't really formed an opinion about feeding them to Puffy yet since he isn't nearly big enough to even be able to do anything with them. LilGreenPuffer, your post made me giggle.

[LilGreenPuffer]

That's my job.

[Nick]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWW.

Hammering clams is easy, no face. But my pet crayfish as a kid was SO sweet. He was big enough to take chunks out of my fingers and never even tried to pinch me, and we're talking about a grabby 5 or 6 year old pulling him out of his tub and letting him crawl around on his chest and hands out of the tank. No idea how I got a nice one when they're such ornery, grumpy beasts on the whole. A friend of my family brought a case of them from down south to boil, most were already dying or dead when he boiled them up, but this one was alive and I claimed him as my own. I won't eat lobster or crayfish to this day myself. Doing that to the crayfish was a very painful thing for me to have to do, but, after seeing one eaten by the puffers, compassion demanded I give a fast, clean end to them; I am not squeemish when something is the right thing to do, even if it's unpleasant for me.

[LilGreenPuffer]

Oh, I know. I'm all for the quick end. But, still, eeewww! I would have gone the freezing route.

[katty]

Wow. Your crayfish sounds like it was so sweet! In that case, I can understand why you feel bad killing them! The ones I kept weren't anything like that. I grew up on a lake so one of my friends and I would catch them all the time when were were little. I had a couple of little ones in a 10 gallon tank filled with lake water, sand, etc. (all natural stuff I pulled right out from the lake) and I kept them for several months. I even kept them in my garage to mimic the temperature that they'd typically be living in. Unlike yours, these were the typical ones and they got so feisty even when I just looked into the tank. I fed them whatever meat my mom happened to have in the freezer and was willing to give me. After having the little ones for a while, we caught a huge one with eggs and I just had to have it since I was young and wanted a tank full of baby crawdads. Unfortunately, I didnt know anything about tank size at this time and the big one ended up taking off claws of the other ones and I felt bad so I ended up putting them back into the lake. Either way, I never really made a connection with them. They didn't really have much of a personality. (Unlike Puffy who's literally attacking bubbles created by the bubbler up top.) It would have been really neat to have one like yours though!
I totally agree with you about the no face thing. I'm just so squeemish I'd probably flip out!

[thepfsmng]

Feeding pond snails or ramshorns doesn't bother me at all, nor shellfish in general.




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