The Puffer Forum

There is likely some fish in their natural diet, but also, in the wild there are no corners, so 99.9% of fish they chase get away.

that is true. he really dislikes other fish in HIS tank, takes bites outta anything that gets too close. one or two rosies shouldnt hurt anything.
something must be right since he growing like a weed. lol.

If you're going to give him feeders, I recommend breeding your own guppies or mollys in a ten gallon, so you know they're free of diseases. The reason hole in the head, camalanus worms, and protozoan parasites are so common in oscars is feeder fish. They're typically VERY territorial, which is why they go after other fish, even those that they aren't really planning on eating.

i agree..i put them in a seperate tank and am treating them now, eventually i will see how they do, to make sure they are feed safe, sounds funny to my husband, who threw some in without my "permission" the other day and couldnt see why i was scooping them out. LOL.
I told him to leave the fish tank to me..lol.
He agreed. LOL.
now there are about 10 in a 5 gallon tank i am going to breed snails in there as well. for Satan...but..all i have found is dead ones at the stores. can they eat the ones that have a cone type shell that grows up? i found like a million of those (small) at a pet store ..i asked the owner, and he didnt know what a fahaka puffer was. HAHAHA!

Those are called Malaysian trumpet snails. I have heard a couple accounts of figure 8's damaging their teeth on them, so I would not give them to a smaller puffers, but I've heard of several fahaka puffers that eat them without a problem.

He didn't know what a fahaka was? I asked a fish shop owner at "Something Fishy" what type of freshwater puffers she might have in, she said "freshwater puffers?" and gave me a look like i was an idiot! you know the look with one eyebrow up? needless to say i haven't been there since

i had a few minutes to kill before work and walked into a fish store called "Captive Reef" in Inkster. When i walked in the guy was talking some nonesense on the phone, must have been a girl or something, and he said he would be right with me. i started looking around at his dirty tanks, and after about 5 minutes of waiting, i asked him about the puffer. he looked at me and said, the only fresh water puffers are gsps and figure 8's, which i dont get in because noone wants them. I wanted to argue that those puffers are NOT freshwater, but figured why waste my breath. I walked out! he has an infestation of those trumpet snails. so i was thinking of just going and getting a bunch, but i am not going to now.
that fs sucked!

I had a cichlid tank prior to getting my Fahaka and it's totally infested with Malaysian Trumpet Snails. I removed all my cichlids from the 90 gallon and put my Fahaka in there with the trumpets. I also have some olive nerites that I collected from Florida about 4 years ago. So far, my Fahaka (only about 3'') has not bothered any of the snails. I did put in some ghost shrimp and he did eat a few of them.

Also, I noticed that my Fahaka is also pacing up and down the sides of the glass. Is this a bad thing?

Cerberus

he is probably just getting settled into the tank.

Crack one of the snails open so he can get a taste and you probably wont' have many snails in the tank after a couple weeks.