I have Dwarf Puffers and am waiting to get my new SAPuffers next week. Just a question though...how do I get them to eat anything other than soft foods..??? My prvious Puffers didnt seem interested in snails...the local store sold me some Cockles ion the shell but they are HUGE...would it be worth crushing them up..??? Would the Puffers eat them..???
Also I have gravel in my tanks, fine substrate...is there any benefit to using sand..?? Or will the SAP be happy with the gravel..???
Any hints or tips would be most appreciated as Im scared of doing things wrong, I have had some very bad Puffer experiences so far and I dont want to do things wrong again
SatansLittleHelper wrote:I have Dwarf Puffers and am waiting to get my new SAPuffers next week. Just a question though...how do I get them to eat anything other than soft foods..??? My prvious Puffers didnt seem interested in snails...the local store sold me some Cockles ion the shell but they are HUGE...would it be worth crushing them up..??? Would the Puffers eat them..???
Also I have gravel in my tanks, fine substrate...is there any benefit to using sand..?? Or will the SAP be happy with the gravel..???
Any hints or tips would be most appreciated as Im scared of doing things wrong, I have had some very bad Puffer experiences so far and I dont want to do things wrong again
If they will eat the cockles, give it to them. Just take it out when they're finished eating. You can always try a garlic extract and infuse it into your food by allowing the food to soak in it. I heard this usually gets a puffers interest. I also heard that simulating motion in food helps get things going. Try earthworms. Puffers can't seem to resist the squigglies. I don't know if your puffer is a burrower, but if it isn't, than I don't think the substrate will matter too much as long it's coarse to fine.
my SAPs refused 2 eat snails for aaaages when i 1st got them, but i found if i crushed the snail up they love it and will even eat them out of my hands now x
SAPs aren't burrowers, so they don't need sand. I keep golfball sized river rocks in my SAP tank without issue. I sometimes wonder if sand might help keep the beak growth in check, but I'm not switching to it just to find out... Mine will eat any pond snails I drop in the tank, so I usually dump a few in at night (just to give the snails a chance to hide), plus I alternately feed frozen bloodworms and frozen brine shrimp along with sometimes adding some live ghost shrimp or cherry shrimp to the tank. It's amazing how fast a SAP will decimate cherry shrimp.
My Puffers: 1 GSP (Microfiche) RIP, 1 Monotrete Turgidus (Leon) in a 30gal. 1 Monotrete suvattii in a 40 gal FW. 120 gallon BW with 3 juvenile Dragon Gobies (so cool). 55 gal with a 2" GSP named Hank. 180 gallon being set up for a Fahaka in the next few months!
If you can get mussels, clams and cockles you can open the shells, scrape out all but a little of the meat and freeze it. I cut the meat I scrape out in to meal sized pieces and freeze it between two sheets of waxed paper, tear a piece off when I need it and thaw. I always leave a meal sized portion attached to half the shell and feed it to my puffers, that way they have to scrape their teeth on the the shell and get a workout trying to get it off.
"Darwin swings...annnnnnd a miss. Boy Jim, Chuck's suffered at the plate tonight. He's 0 for 3 and I'm not sure he's recovered from that shoulder pull a few weeks ago. I'll bet the front office is re-thinking that contract."
Sometimes they do take a while to realize that something is food. Ways to hopefully shorten that time is to soak in garlic, dangle on a line (fishing line works great), crush snails instead of whole, and some others already mentioned.
My figure 8 puffer took over a month to realize that the ghost shrimp were food! When he finally did, he killed both of them. One was eaten and one was half-eaten. When I saw him buzzing about with the biggest belly ever, I realized that he finally got 'em and took out the other half of the shrimp that was not eaten. Since then I've switched to cherry shrimp for ease of breeding, and I only give 1-3 juvies depending on size (1/4-3/4 inch) at a time to avoid the gorging, but they seem to avoid him better than the ghosties. They hide in the fake plants for weeks at a time. Snails, however, barely make it to the bottom of the tank.
Get some cherry shrimp, stick them in a *stable* tank with some algae pellets, sit back, and wait for the shrimplets to appear.
"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him or her. Will she gain anything by it? Will it restore her to a control over her own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to freedom for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."
Yeah, so long as you have at least one male in the mix of females, cherry shrimp will breed quite easily on their own in a small freshwater tank without predators. If you want, you can even use the same tank to breed snails (that's what I do). Ghost shrimp are another matter, as most shrimp sold as ghost shrimp require some salt in the water for them to breed (they're more hassle in my opinion).
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept: T lineatus T miurus A modestus T biocellatus C valentini C coranata C papuan C lorteti DPs suvattii burrfish T niphobles
and will even eat them out of my hands now x
