Teeth care

[wahoosotto]

I have an MBU puffer and mainly feed him shrimps and the 1 a month snail, although I really don't want to feed snails as it is really messy and hard to remove from a deep tank.

Question, would feeding small shrimps( about less than an inch long) be enough to "trim" the puffers teeth? Or should I feed snails more often?

TIA

[wahoosotto]

Anyone?

[RTR]

IMHO & IME, no, it would not at all be a suitable diet. I cannot imagine doing dental surgery on a T.mbu. T. mbu grows fast, eats lots and while they do not require a diet quite as high in snails/shellfisf as SAPs, they do need far more crunch and hard shell abrasion than shrimps can provide. It will not be long before you are buying shellfish from the local fish market as the primary diet for the T.mb, and proving food on the half-shell at least for the fast-growing fish. I hope you have a massive tank. Longer tubes are available from good LFS and I have 2 long plastic grabbers as well, although mine are old now. I hope such are still available.

The substrate in long-term (10 to 20 years) puffer tanks ends up being a non-trivial percentage snail and shellfish fragments. Those form a layer atop the regular substrate in the siphon tube while you are cleaning/vacuuming the substrate.

[Pufferpunk]

I hope with the diet he's been offered, he doesn't already need dentistry!
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/

[AnneMarie]

Snails are important. Think about it this way: would you feed your dog a vegan diet because you didn't like beef or lamb in his dog food? Puffers need snails for their teeth. Please think about the fish =) Some animals are meant to eat one thing and other animals are meant to eat other things but when we keep them we owe it to them to keep them healthy.

[RTR]

But snails are only suited to very young/small T. mbu. I harvested snails from my T.mbu tank routinely to feed other puffers. You cannot expect large fish to eat small snails. T.mbu will eat mature Olive Nerites, but they are too expensive to use for food.

[Pufferpunk]

Plenty of other cheaper alternatives for a mbu. Clams, oysters, mussels, shell-on shrimp, to name a few. Monster fish like this are quite $$$ to feed. Possible more than a human!

[Master of Puffers]

Plenty of other cheaper alternatives for a mbu. Clams, oysters, mussels, shell-on shrimp, to name a few. Monster fish like this are quite $$$ to feed. Possible more than a human!

I'm lucky to live in an area which likes sea-food a lot and Im very lucky to have found where the local sea-food wholesaler is. The puffer crew's favourite food item is langoustine tails..

I try to buy as much as I can when the loose sea-food comes with extra bonus points in my local supermarket..I'm not ashamed to buy 2 langoustine tails or 3 loose shrimp at a time.