The Puffer Forum

I have noticed a difference in feeding behaviour of my 'lurker' puffers to that of the 'hunter' puffers.Main difference is that they won't eat off the bottom.They will take food from the surface,as it drops to bottom, off tweezers and from the hand but as soon as it hits the bottom thats it,meal over.The hunters will carry on regardless to the meal has gone.
Not outstanding info! but I would of thought being primarily substrate fish they would feed off the bottom.
Any comments?

...mine feeds off the bottom, at least he did in the shop, latly he's getting fat off snails ao hasent needed feeding lol

What kind of puffer is it?

A fangs (Tetraodon cochinchinensis)
he acts more like a hunter seeker when he thinks n-ones looking though he's doing it now buzzing around checking out various snails and plants lol, as soon as he sees's me looking he suddenly sinks down and rests on a plant/the gravel.

My congo puffs (yeah... I have two of the blokes now; the addiction continues) both will eat frozen (thawed) bloodworms off of the substrate. They both also do the "puffer dance" (aka- wiggle for food). The larger of the two will even pop out of the sand when I wander near. (They are in different tanks in different rooms btw). Some lurkers!

I also can't get them to eat clams no matter how I wiggle them... although they will nibble on mysis shrimp.

It just goes to show you , no two puffers are the same!

My 1.5" T.miurus will eat various live and frozen foods at all levels of the tank. My 4" T.miurus will only eat small thawed shrimp. And to get him to eat that, it has to be skewered and wiggled around his snout while he is buried. He will not eat live foods nor will he eat any other kind of frozen food Lazy #•+^•%*!!!

my juvenile gsp is alurker and will venture out of whichever cave he is in to grab food as it falls. when he is in the mood,he will swim up to one of the monos he shares a tank with,and take a chunk of food out of their mouths as if to say get it back if you think your hard enough..... he will also rummage around in the sand and hoover up anything left if he is stillhungry.

Actually, GSPs are active hunters, not lurkers. Lurkers wait for the food to come to them & then pounce on it.

My Miurus took alot of patience to train to eat different foods, tried all the feeding articles and it has helped somewhat...but it does take alot of patience with the lurkers.

My congo was 1 1/2 when i got her and now shes 3inches..i feed her 2 or 3 days and she only begs for food when its food day because shes simply not hungry on the other days..normally i will show her the cup i use to prepare food in which she recognises and if shes hungry she will zoom out of the sand real fast and start wiggling, if shes not hungry she just stays put.

Ziva accepts scallops,headon raw shrimp(crevettes),and silver sides frozen fish from my fingers and bloodworms,earthworms from the bottom of the tank.

However she will not eat if anyone else feeds her but me lol

Funny this comes up now. My Suvatti just stopped eating and I can't figure out what is wrong.

This thread is like 5 years old, hehe.

Bubba stops eating for weeks sometimes. My theory is that he's really a "she" and gets eggy and just goes into protective hiding mode. Just this last week he's been at the glass every day begging for food, following 2-3 weeks of no interest in food at all, even when I'd put it in front of his (her?) nose.

Always check the temp though, too cool and their appetites slack off big time.

She lays eggs?

No, but considering he/she stays pretty darn plump even when not eating for several weeks.. I just don't know what to think. Color looks good, still gives me the wiggle/wave greeting, just has no interest in food sometimes.

Leon does the same thing. He's on an eating binge right now, everything that falls in the tank is a snack but he does go for weeks on end with out eating. He's an earthworm fanatic and at times I can't even get him to look at them, it seems like this happens more over summer than winter. In the winter I have also noticed he likes to dig out a depression in the gravel and lays there on occasion vs going under the stump. Mating behavior maybe?