I guess you could say that I've gotten into a "rut" in regards to feeding all my puffers. Mealtime at the Puffer House generally consists of shrimp, mussels, and bloodworm. I have cockles but none of my puffers will eat them, so they are basically a waste. When it came to my attention that some of my redeyes had to have their teeth trimmed, I realised that I was failing in providing my puffers with crunchy foods. I have a snail tank, but with the exception of my GSP's, turgidus, F8's and Ceylons .... getting the rest of my puffers eating snails has not been very successful. I did get ahold of some bigger snails with softer shells (not really sure what they were .. pond snails maybe?) but for some reason they aren't staying alive. I thought I'd put them in with my ramshorn, but they've all died. I don't know if they ramshorn have killed them or what. I also put them in my red-claw crab tank (recently moved my Matano out and put the red-claw in), but they don't seem to have lasted in there either, which is a shame because my puffers seemed very keen on eating them.
So, with the good snails not breeding and hard to get ahold of, and the ramshorn not being taken .... I'm sort of back to square one. However, today at the grocery store I bought some raw shrimp with shells on (the shrimp I've been feeding has been cooked without shells), thinking that would be a good way to help keep the teeth trimmed in some of my puffers. I had a very good response on those. I thought because I've been giving my puffers cooked shrimp that they would ignore the raw kind, but I was pleasantly surprised, especially by some of my GSP's, which had stopped taking the cooked shrimp so eagerly -- they tore into the raw shrimp and were voraciously eating it up. That put a huge smile on my lips. Generally all my puffers seemed to be very happy at being given the raw shrimp with the shell on. In fact, my Abei knocked the shell off and then ate just the shell! The only puffer that didn't take part in the Shrimp-a-rama was BeeBoo, my MBU. I am treating him for IP's ... so maybe that's it. I'm still seeing the stringy poo, so he may just not be feeling too keen right now and that's why he passed on the shrimp.
Now I have another question --- since I have gotten such a good response on the raw shrimp with shell-on .... how often should I try to feed this to them? Let me also say that I have to get these at the fresh fish counter and that they aren't cheap (nothing in the UK is though) .... so I'm wondering if I would have to feed these every time I normally feed the puffers, or if I could get away with feeding raw shrimp without the shell (which is much easier to get ahold of) for most of the mealtimes and supplement with shrimp with shell-on every week or twice a week, whatever would be helpful in keeping their teeth trimmed down. Of course I will still try to get them to eat snails too. What do you think?
It's just that I'm having a hard time finding any other crunchy foods that the puffers will take. Like I said, the cockles were a waste of money. I bought some live mussels once, and that was interesting, some of my puffers enjoyed them, but I ended up throwing away half of them because I wasn't sure how to store them and I don't think they stay alive much after you bring them home. I tried feeding them scallops once, but no one ate any of that, in fact, I ended up pulling it out of the tanks and feeding my dogs the scallops. So I'm at a loss as to what to feed my puffers to help keep their teeth trimmed. I can't imagine even trying to trim a MBU's teeth. I wouldn't even want to try that!!
Any suggestions?? I am open to anything that might work at this point. I've already tried smashing the snails with a hammer, and that didn't do much but make a mess and make me feel sorry for the snails (I didn't know they would bleed!).
Back to square one again!
