F8 Newbie Puffer Questions

[hsphotos]

I am a new F8 puffer owner and have to say, I'm loving the experience so far! These little guys have quite a bit of personality for a fish! We were actually suppose to have gotten freshwater dwarf puffers, but my order got mixed up and we ended up with the F8's. For the first day they were in my freshwater tank until I figured out that they were brackish fish. Anyways, long story short they are now happily living in a the proper conditions!

I purchased dried blood worms for them and they seem happy. I feed them once every morning until I can see their bellies growing. This afternoon I went out and got them a few snails to munch on, too. I read online that you should feed them snails about once a week, is that correct? Most of the places around me refuse to give out the common pond snail as they are invasive so they can't sell them. I told them they were going to be used as food, but they still wouldn't do it. I even offered to sign a waiver! So now I have to drive 20 minutes once a week to get them snails. I'll eventually look into starting a snail breeding tank so I don't have to keep making the trip.

As far as other live bait - if I use ghost shrimp, they have to be quarantined and fed veggies for a bit of time? How long would you suggest? How about crayfish? I plan on stocking up on some other types of food from the pet store as well. If I were to get cubed frozen stuff, would you recommend de-thawing and letting them pick at it before tanking it out? Can you re-freeze?

Sorry for all the questions! Just want to make sure I give these little guys what they need They are still very small, only about 1.5"

Thanks!

[littlec]

There are some good articles on feeding and breeding snails in the puffer library: library/category/feeding/

In the first article there is a list of all the different kinds of food you can give them. I am a fairly new figure 8 owner as well. So I picked pond snails cuz they were taking over my community tank, San Francisco bay frozen krill and San Francisco bay frozen silversides (cut these up). Pet Smart had the frozen food. I want to get him some baby clams but I haven't found any yet.

there is also a good article on snail breeding. You don't have to have too many to start. Just resist the urge to feed them to the puffer. They eat veggies and algae wafers.

Oh and since your puffer is new, you may want to read the hospital section in the puffer library too. You may need to be watchful of internal parasites.

[sgtmyers88]

Welcome, as you know they are a Brackish fish and this particular species does best in a salinity of 1.003-1.005 and that is very easy to do if you have not already. You could probably do it in one 50 percent water change with no ill effects if the tank is well established. Make sure you have a hydrometer or refractometer.

And yes please use caution when you use live food. They can contain internal parasites that can be passed to your puffer.

Helpful links and tutorials:
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/
library/puffers-in-focus/fig8/
library/feeding/problems-feeding-your-puffer/