The Puffer Forum

ScallyWag wrote:Most are die hard stereotype that are narrow minded and ignorant. It's obvious threadstarter is not a salesman and NLS is a reputable brand that's already highly commercialized. The puffer market is simply not a lucrative market to even make any r specific product for. In case you don't know, many arowana and catfishes eat a highly nutritional pellet diet that are far more expensive than your common off the market dead seafood. A few folds more expensive. The reason I include pellets as a PART diet is because they are highly nutritional and 100% free of parasites. If you think it's unnatural, and think that a puffer should be treated like a marine shark. LOL. Do go ahead and feed them live food to keep it as NATURAL as possible. The debate won't end with the ignorant and hard stereotyped mindset if your not open to suggestions. Know your facts.

wow that was harsh....

My apologies if I sounded harsh. A little carried away.

im not narrow minded, ignorant, and whatever else senseless "harsh" words you want to throw out of your keyboard. what do puffers eat in the wild? crustaceans mainly, shrimp and other meaty foods im pretty sure. the most natural way to supplement this in the aquarium(also not really natural but hey, what can you do to stop it from happening?) is by feeding exactly what is recommended. sure there are countless types of pellet foods out there, some nutritional some not, and some better than others. not saying its bad to feed pellets i would be a hypocrite as i feed them to my other fish. im saying for a predator fish there really is no point unless he seems to go nuts over them like my GSP does a shrimp or clam and not him eating it because he thinks there possibly wont be more food after those things. im not comparing the puffer and the shark itself, its the type of diet and the mindset of such a predator fish. you cant say that puffers arent seeming to be mini sharks aggression and personality wise. this is the way my GSP seems anyway minus the aggression to a point. they like to stalk their prey if the moment isnt right to attack, they exploit weaknesses and study their prey. im open to suggestions, why do you think im successful at keeping my puffer alive and well? do you think i knew everything i know now going into getting the fish? nope not at all. so suggest all you want, but all i was saying was not in my fish tank. and if you read a little more, maybe squint so you can see a little better, i say maybe a way to incorporate this into the diet without keeping the pellets whole and possibly your puffer choking on them because your hiding it in food, was to grind it up and put it in some sort of premade frozen mix. but even if you do that you run into the water polluting problem that RTR mentioned once the pellets dissolve

I am not going to agree / disagree with anyone or jump into any mud slinging... just going to make a few corrections:

Yes, there are pellets designed specifically for puffers.
http://en.item.rakuten.com/auc-aspure/10002858/
That is just one of a few varieties available.

Yes, studies have been done. Maybe not in English but they have been done.

Yes, there is a market for specialized fish food. If puffers were such a niche then why is walmart carrying them?

Do pellets help with the nutritional balance? Probably. Do they help with keeping the teeth in check? Probably not. Do they dirty the tank? Probably. Are they an alternative to Vitamin water? Possibly. Do the pros outweigh the cons? That is the core of the debate...

I am highly unlikely to slam NLS per se, as I keep and use multiple of their foods. But I never use such for puffers and never will, as I know better.

I am perfectly willing to compare any puffer I have kept for health, color, activity, and lifespan with anyone's experiences. But I am really hard-nosed on doing it right or not doing it at all. Certainly I have made mistakes - and still do. When you do experimental work to try to improve tank practices, it is inevitable, it is part of the process. But when you have evaluated the downside of anything and found it to outweigh the benefit, you drop that practice. And you speak up when someone else proposes such practice. If we cannot do that, the forums are not places for learning. And are not for me.

But I think that it is good to discuss it, too. Different people may have gotten different results. It seems to have worked well for the OP. The aquatic hobby as we know it is constantly changing, and it is great that we can share what we have experienced with people around the world, as our experiences are not always the same, and trends in our experiences may change over time as products, captive-bred specimens, etc. change and develop. For example, just in the past couple of years, the care information for the invertebrates from Sulawesi has totally transformed because people have learned new things about them and have also managed to breed hardy specimens in captivity! If people weren't discussing their varied experiences, we'd never know.