The Puffer Forum

Can I just put/leave all of the snails and shrimp in the tank for him to eat whenever he gets hungry? or will he eat all in sight until nothing is left? I read a few articles on his diet needs and they mention feeding snails regularly to keep his beak worn down but don't answer the above question.

I don't have him yet; I want to make sure everything is perfect when I get him. The tank is a 20 gallon long, crushed slate gravel, driftwood, live plants, no tankmates will be in there other than his food to be.

Thanks alot.

Puffers generally hunt down every snail in the tank, so I have a separate tank I breed them in, and only give my puffer a couple at a time.

Jase wrote:Puffers generally hunt down every snail in the tank, so I have a separate tank I breed them in, and only give my puffer a couple at a time.

Yea, good call. If you were to dump in like 100 snails.. they would no doubt devour each and every last one... until bursting. They have no control when it comes to snails. Some of mine are capable of ignoring worms and such... but snails, forget it.

However, sometimes you can get away with ghost shrimps just being their buddies. They will slowly disappear. That is mostly cause they actually have to catch the ghost shrimps and they are hard to see, where as snails are so slow they are no contest. Cherry shrimps would most likely get pwnd cause they are red and way easier to see, chase and catch.

Do you feed your puff crabs as well? I don't think mine are big enough to take on such creatures as crabs or crayfish. They tend to stick to the baby size snails and blood worms. The problem is I know the LFS that I bought them from didn't feed them snails and I don't want to have to trim their teeth to soon.

any advice to get them on a live food diet would be appreciated.

have you read the feeding articles in the library?
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... y/feeding/

there are also quite a few good threads floating around here.