The Puffer Forum

I'm totally confused.

Oh I'm sorry, and I don't mean to offend anyone, but I absolutely abhor cricket (the game)! It's got to be up there with golf for being so boring, and it goes on forever and ever. Whomever invented it must have led an agonising life.

(and just for the record .... I'm not sure how or why that comparison between basketball and cricket came about!)

Wouldn't the closest comparison be between cricket and baseball? Or rounders?

Anyhow...

If you're horrified by crickets, never rehab baby birds... I used to volunteer at a rehab place, and I got sick of hand feeding crickets to baby blue jays and such. The worst part was that the hatchlings would choke on a whole cricket, so you had to de-leg their crickets for them. Feeding the raptors was way more entertaining. You just toss in a dead mouse, and watch the frenzy!

-Rob

The crickets here in the UK are a bit different from our big black ones that I used to see in the US. They look like mutant crickets, but I don't guess it matters to the puffers, or mudskippers what they look like.

I am not horrified by crickets, I just don't like insects at all and sort of have a bit of a phobia about them. However, I don't think I will have much call to deal with the crickets anymore, as I recently found out that they aren't very good for my mudskippers, and that was the main reason for buying them in the first place. Some of my puffers did eat them, but not enough to where I think I should buy them regularly. Maybe once a month, or every couple months. I'm now experimenting with earthworm pellets since I can't readily get the real thing now that it's cold (haven't looked for a bait shop yet) ... so I'm curious to see how they go over. My Rainbow crabs seem to enjoy them, but there's little they refuse in the way of food.

Is comparing basketball to cricket like comparing a McDonalds happy meal to a five course banquet? Trying to keep it simple for you guys. One is quick and easy but not very satisfying and the other takes time to savour and is thoroughly satisfying. Basket ball is quick and easy and cricket takes time to savour and is thoroughly satisfying.

Lol this gave me an eyebrow up. took me a while (at least til schismy mention the sport to realize)
So how old and how big do the puffers need to be to eat crickets

My Red-Line puffers aren't very big and they really enjoyed the crickets, one of the few of my puffers that did enjoy them. I would guess that they are maybe just less than an inch long. Really don't know how old they are though, but I don't think that matters. If they like it, they will bite it and eat it.

I would never feed my puffers crickets. Theit legs are very sharp. Also there just nasty. I feed my puffers frozen glassworms, bloodworms, mussels and brine shrimp, the one with spirunila,live brine shrimp and tommorow I'm going to buy Frozen squid. I also put selcon in my bloodworms and glassworms. They gotta have vitamin c, hehe...

If a puffer can crunch a snail shell right into smithereens, then they can probably handle cricket legs. That's my reasoning, anyway.

My puffers, even the smaller ones, didn't seem to have any problems with the legs. And I agree that crickets are nasty, but I'll do (nearly) anything for the happiness of my puffers.

I think I got over touching nasty food for them when I started feeding them bloodworms lol.

Since moving the water around here has made it very difficult to breed snails like I used to, so I moved to crickets as a staple food source for my puffers. I feed them the same tropical fish flake I used to feed the snails (which they do seem to like a whole lot based on what I've seen) and give them hydrated "diaper jell" to water them. The puffs love them, and have no qualms with gobbling them down the moment they see them.

The only thing I dislike about the crickets is how much of a mess they make while the puffs gobble them. The tank is over filtered, but I just don't like the idea of adding all that extra "nutrient" to the water column. I'm considering freezing the crickets and thawing them just before feeding which should hopefully limit the amount of "spillage", and remove the cricket care requirement from the equation as an added bonus. Has anyone tried this before?

There are also freeze-dried crickets in the lizard section of Petsmart which should also work. Although I'd imagine they'll need to be soaked for an hour before feeding.

Instead of "diaper jell" to water them, try a slice of orange. Much better for hydrating/gut-loading & packed with vitamin C!

Yes, I've used oranges in the past. Just have to make sure they don't dry out.