Lake snails and crawfish

[DGabbs]

Hi,

I'm getting a pair of F8 puffers and i live right on a lake full of fresh food for them.

I was just wondering if it is a good idea to feed puffer fish live food from a lake?

I can get my hands on as many crawfish and snails as i want and will keep them in a QT tank for weeks, but is it still too risky? I heard that lake inverts can carry parasites and that kind of thing.

I would prefer not to freeze them because it wouldn't be the same for the puffers, but would rather do what best for their health.

Any experience?

[GSPicthus]

I was thinking the same exact thing this weekend when I was sitting by the Lake but then decided the risk just want worth it. Aside from possible parasites, snails and cray fish are likely to be affected from the pollution that get into the lakes.

[RTR]

With sufficient care (feeding and water changes) and rigorous QT (separate area with separate tools, buckets, all equipment) and sufficient time (absolute minimum 4 weeks, 6-8 weeks better) it should be possible to offerrelatively harmless food from the wild.

Realistically, the same QT period for isolation once per feeder item could establish feeder colonies in-house with lower time and effort and far more safety and assurance of disease-freer conditions. That is the path I would take, and have taken.

[J-P]

most would freeze them to eliminate any bugs that come with them. I believe that there are some that will survive the freezing effect.

It is not so much the product being brought in but the water that comes with it. Most invert parasites are not transferable to vertebrate (fish). The key word there being "most". Some are and and you don't know which, and freezing may not kill them all.

+1 to RTR. Until you can culture your own 2nd generation or 3rd generation, it is a bad choice to feed FW mollusks to FW puffers.

Going FW to SW is a different case and vice versa.

[DGabbs]

I will be keeping my f8 in 1.005. I guess i will just QT the snails and craw for a month or so.

When i put the snails and craw in the feeder QT tank i rinsed them in tap water (well water) for 10 seconds. I thought this would remove most lake water form them.

[Pufferpunk]

They must be really tiny ones for a F8!

I pulled out about 500 snails from a local lake & froze them.