The Puffer Forum

my puff ate my pet crayfish and the puff is still young (1-3/4 inches long).

Well...puffer is as puffer does.
Or something.
Sorry bout that, but it's not such a great surprise.
Pami.

I picked up a frozen bag of "salad shrimp" at the grocery store today. They're peeled (I couldn't find shrimp small enough for the F8s that were shell-on) but at only $2 a bag, neither the fish or I are complaining.

F-8s need crunch, second only to SAPs IME. those shimp are okay on protein, but should not be a staple unless you enjoy dentistry.

Do small F8s need shelled foods as much? They seem too tiny to tackle much more than frozen krill.

I've read that A. modestus are also bad for teeth overgrowth, but the two I picked up recently seem to be fine. Chances are, the LFS wasn't feeding them snails, and they had them in the store for at least a month.

For F8s, A. modestus, and SAPs, how often should they be fed shelled foods? The puffer lists recommends snails daily, but this seems like a lot, and it seem like they would be overfed if more food was offered on top of this. That, and I read on this forum that daily feeding for some puffers is unnecessary.

SAPs really do need snails daily. Productivity of my snail colony was interrupted for 3 weeks and now I have a dentistry job to do. They don't need much supplemental food beyond this. Gutloaded ghost shrimp perhaps; the odd bit of krill.

I haven't kept modestus but my SAP is fed snails daily and still needs its teeth trimmed every 3 months or so.

RTR wrote:F-8s need crunch, second only to SAPs IME. those shimp are okay on protein, but should not be a staple unless you enjoy dentistry.

I know. I'm, just using them as a treat once a week.

SAPs and F-8s need snails from the get-go. You just need to be a bit selective on the size of the snails. Young/small puffer's teeth grow just as quickly as older/larger puffer's teeth. Species counts much more than size.

My experience with modestus was short-term, but they were on a largely snail diet while I had them. That is pretty much my standard new puffer food for anthing that could be hunter-predator - the species of snail may be quite different from what they knew in the wild, but the general format will be recognizable as a potential food item.

do ghost shrip provide teeth grinding for f-8's

The snail population in my FW tank got decimated when I started feeding them to my 3 GSPs.... I soon gave up when I had to hunt for 20 baby snails each feeding.

I try to feed crunchy substitutes... various clams, mussels, whelks, other shellfish, shell-on shrimp. All frozen and thawed out in vitamin water beforehand. The puffs nibble at the shells (I can see "bite marks" taken out of the edges). Generally, they don't finish what I give them... when they start becoming obese, I remove the shells/shrimp.

Shellfish are easy to remove, because they are heavy, sink to the bottom, and can be removed with tongs. For large shell-on shrimp, I clip it in a plastic clip, and then tie the clip to the edge of the tank (I tried the suction-cupped feeding clips, but the excited puffs would try to eat my fingers when I was sticking / unsticking it!).

This is about 2 - 3 times a week. One or two other days a week I will feed small amounts of dried krill or bloodworms -- just to keep them happy, not to "fill them up".

I've never had problems with their teeth since I've been doing this (most part of a year). But I suppose GSPs teeth are slower growing? And it's still very early days yet, so *touch wood*

For me, GSPs are not nearly the problem SAPs and F-8s can be. I have seen them with overgrowth, but never my own fish.

ive only given my fig 8's bloodworms,freezedried bloodworms,snails,crawdads,redworms and today i just bought a big bag of mussels for the first time and crushed one up and they seemed to love it so it will be added to the menu.

Try sm pieces of people shrimp & also FD krill/plankton.