Are worms okay to feed GSP's

[sassiegemstone]

Are earthworms okay to feed GSP?

I fed them to the Flounders and Gemstone tore a few of the earthworms pieces up. I never seen her belly so huge. She seems more content now.

I had shrimp in the tank but she would not touch it.

I got the worms from our yard where we do not use any kind of chemicals. We reserve this area for feeding our Oscars/JD's/and Jaguars.

[Pufferpunk]

My puffers say--YUM!

[tekknoschtev]

While I feed it as a rare treat, red wigglers seem to be a nice addition to Penguin's diet from time to time. She mostly get krill, mysis, enriched brine, chopped cocktail shrimp, some nori, and other meaty things though.

[YBeNormal]

Throw in some FW mussels or clams on the half shell once in a while for a real treat. They aren't very expensive and GSPs love 'em! They are a little messy, so I recommend doing this right before the routine water changes.

Correction: The mussles I feed to my puffers Mytillus Edulis and they are SW--not FW as stated above.

[ChesapeakeSwellfish]

I feed my GSP and F8 a small piece of earthworm (nightcrawler) about once/week. I bought a dozen and cut them up into pieces about 3/8 to 1/2" in length (not for the squeamish), then put the pieces on wax paper on a cookie sheet and froze them. I then put them in a ziplock bag - this way, they are not frozen into a big messy lump. When its time to feed, I thaw the meal-size pieces in vitamin.

I now have my own plastic cutting board for such operations.

The most common mussels at the seafood market are the blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) - grown on the northeast coast, commonly $3 to $4 for a 2 to 3 pound bag. They are delicious lightly steamed with garlic butter, though the puffers prefer them uncooked!

[sassiegemstone]

I already tried clam and mussel and she will not eat them. I even tried tiny pieces of squid.

She loves worms, shrimp, brine shrimp, and ghost shrimp.

She seems to be quite content.

I have plenty of snails in the tank for her. I got about a dozen the other week and now they seem to be populating.

[Pufferpunk]

Check out the list of foods in the 2 articles on GSPs in The Library. You need to get more crunchy foods in the diet. Let your puffer go hungry for a few days, before trying new foods.