The Puffer Forum

Tim wrote:

sevenyearnight wrote:Nope those dudes are hard as diamonds, although I think dwarf puffers are snail slurpers.

Even my 2inch GSP cant crack em open unless I give him ones that are small. But those he swallows whole rather than cracking them due to their size. So I crack open adults for him a little so he still gets a good few bites out of the shells itself as well.

Being on the other side of the big pond I doubt there would be much use in sending them over though . They would probably die somewhere along the way.

Don't feed MTS to your puffers, they can chip their teeth trying to open them.

I have your snails all ready to go, just PM me your address, the post office is right across the street from me, I can ship them asap.

sevenyearnight wrote:

Tim wrote:

sevenyearnight wrote:Nope those dudes are hard as diamonds, although I think dwarf puffers are snail slurpers.

Even my 2inch GSP cant crack em open unless I give him ones that are small. But those he swallows whole rather than cracking them due to their size. So I crack open adults for him a little so he still gets a good few bites out of the shells itself as well.

Being on the other side of the big pond I doubt there would be much use in sending them over though . They would probably die somewhere along the way.

Don't feed MTS to your puffers, they can chip their teeth trying to open them.

He doesnt need to open them .

I have some ramshorns I'd be happy to send -- if you need them, just let me know.

I live in Dayton, OH. If you live close I could give you some to supplement the others that are on the way.

Tim your puffer sucking down a whole MTS snail is very dangerous. They have a very sharp point that could perf your GSP's intestines. You run the chance of killing your puffer by feeding him/her MTS's

xrayjeeper83 wrote:Tim your puffer sucking down a whole MTS snail is very dangerous. They have a very sharp point that could perf your GSP's intestines. You run the chance of killing your puffer by feeding him/her MTS's

I didn't like it much either but mostly because swallowing whole meant he wouldnt grind his teeth down, thus I feed him adults that I crack open so he atleast scrapes his teeth quite a bit getting to all the meat.

Thanks for this piece of info though, hadn't thought about that.

Thanks everyone, i have some snails on the way thanks to wonderful folk on this forum <3

I have a breeder set up which did have a nice crop of young snails but for some reason (probably me) i now have no babies left and am waiting for new eggs to hatch.

I found that I had to put more food then I thought was needed to keep the snail population growing and happy

For the MTS that I have I found that feeding them a lot + 30 Celsius water seems to make them reproduce like rabbits. No idea how it is for other snails though.

I thought i was feeding them enough but probably not, also the water might need to be a smidge warmer than it is.

Phoenix91 wrote:Thanks everyone, i have some snails on the way thanks to wonderful folk on this forum <3

I have a breeder set up which did have a nice crop of young snails but for some reason (probably me) i now have no babies left and am waiting for new eggs to hatch.

I have had and still have a little problem breeding them. I've discussed it here before and I think it's our 3 degree KH and 9 degree GH tap-water here in Montgomery County. I've introduced 3 whole cuttlebones to my 15g snail tank and it has made a noticeable difference in breeding and the overall health of my snails. The actual KH and GH of my tank water hasn't changed but I think the snails are absorbing what the need through their foot as they pass over the cuttlebone.

JRC3 wrote:

Phoenix91 wrote:Thanks everyone, i have some snails on the way thanks to wonderful folk on this forum <3

I have a breeder set up which did have a nice crop of young snails but for some reason (probably me) i now have no babies left and am waiting for new eggs to hatch.

I have had and still have a little problem breeding them. I've discussed it here before and I think it's our 3 degree KH and 9 degree GH tap-water here in Montgomery County. I've introduced 3 whole cuttlebones to my 15g snail tank and it has made a noticeable difference in breeding and the overall health of my snails. The actual KH and GH of my tank water hasn't changed but I think the snails are absorbing what the need through their foot as they pass over the cuttlebone.

15 gallons . Mine is only 2.5G

The snails definitely need calcium in their diet, or their shells will get all thin and crackly. I have incredibly soft water with a KH that doesn't even read on the test. I add baking soda to all my exchange water and that keeps at about 4 - 5 Degrees German scale or whatever that is.
Make sure that the wafers that you feed your snails DO NOT contain ETHOXYQUIN, this is a preservative that causes cancer and it banned in human food. Aqueon does not use this, and neither does Hikari I believe, but read the labels carefully of all dried prepared fish foods.
I feed my snails the Aqueon algae wafers, and also the bottom feeder tabs, they must be getting enough calcium because their shells are very hard. My snails didn't breed or really live very long until I adjusted the KH and fed them a better diet.
I acutally just because it happened to be the tank left over, moved my snail breeding to a 35 gallon, there are a few Odessa Barbs in there, but they don't bother them.

Wow. i'll add cuttlebone to the breeder and basically start it from scratch. i think i have the hikari algae wafers, i also have the mini wafers. Maybe the water conditions just weren't to their liking.

I think mine is about 3 Gs and i have a basic sponge filter in there.

Thanks everyone for the advice, hopefully i can avoid a situation like this in the future.