alternatives to snails for grinding down teeth

[volcomkrew4life]

Are there any?? I'm not asking where to get snails so please don't tell me where lol I already know where I can get them. I just wanna know if there are any alternatives to grinding down the teeth of a Green Spotted Puffer other than snails.

[las]

I defrost my clams on a half shell. Then I take most of the meat off and just leave a little on so that he has to scrape it off. I give him this clam 10 mins before I feed him the actual clam flesh. He beats the crap out of it. If I just drop the clam in he devours the meat and doesnt scrape or bite the clam shell. Hope that helps.

[volcomkrew4life]

Yeah I do this too...I didn't know if it was enough though. Is this all you do to keep your puffer's teeth from overgrowing?

[las]

Yeah I do this too...I didn't know if it was enough though. Is this all you do to keep your puffer's teeth from overgrowing?

Pretty much... Hes a mappa so hes always biting the rocks. He really beats the clam up so it appears to be enough for now.

[RTR]

Scraping bivalve shells is good incisor grinding, so +1 to both the prior posts.

I don't really consider that quite enough for most fish. I don't like feeding any one food in large majority other than to certain fish. In my tanks, F-8s and SAPs get diets of mainly snails, but even that is of at least two varieties of snails (common pond and Ramshorns) in roughly equal portions. Other puffers get a variety of foods, with most being crunchy or needing scraping.

HTH

[volcomkrew4life]

RTR, any other hard, crunchy food suggestions other than snails?

[Reaperpilot2014]

Shrimp are decent as long as they still have their shell on. Earthworms are tougher on teeth than they look as well. Love crayfish!

[Pufferpunk]

Have you seen the feeding article in our Library? Lots of great crunchy foods in there!

[RTR]

Crab and lobster legs are good crunchy food. Ditto crayfish for larger puffers.

[las]

My live rock is always scarred up... I watch him biting the rocks all the time....If I feed snow crab legs, do i just drop a leg in and let him eat it with the shell on? Kinda worried that he would swallow the shell and crab together and tear up his insides... Am I delisional?

[RTR]

Shell fragments are sorted in the mouth in general. The incisor plates break up shells, with lager chunks being spit out via the mouth. After the pharyngeal teeth grind the smaller chunks, those fine are flushed out through the gills or less often forward through the mouth. Puffers are pretty adept at sorting digestibles from the really hard stuff.

[Arny]

I'm sure i read somewhere of someone putting fish paste on rock so that the puffer would grind it's teeth on the rock trying to get it off. I'm assuming they never left it in there as that would be bad for your water.

[jus85411]

i think biting the rock is more of a natural behavior than anything. maybe could be taught, but like that person did you might have to lure him to the rock. my GSP bit the rock as well, but i never tried to make him he did it on his own

[las]

Shell fragments are sorted in the mouth in general. The incisor plates break up shells, with lager chunks being spit out via the mouth. After the pharyngeal teeth grind the smaller chunks, those fine are flushed out through the gills or less often forward through the mouth. Puffers are pretty adept at sorting digestibles from the really hard stuff.

So he will be able to handle any hard shelled crustacean/bivalve i offer him?
(As long as he can break it with his incisors of course)

[RTR]

No, not "any" hard-shelled critter. Some shells are too thick and too hard, or their curves are too tight (which makes them stronger). The thickness of the shell versus the puffer's size and jaw strength matters.

Some bivalves are offered on the half shell - the puffer is literally filing down its incisor plates against the shell while scraping off the (well-attached) meat.

The food has to be scaled to what the fish can handle.