Puffer Eating Characteristics

[salt_water_aquarist]

I have a baby Mappa and a baby Stellatus Puffer. The are eating small pieces of krill and scallop with much gusto. When they eat it they seem to churn it around in their mouths and then spit it out into smaller pieces. They then seek out the smaller pieces and seem to repeat this ritual. Of course, this causes some amount of mess in the aquarium. Questions: how do puffers actually ingest food? Are they trying to squeeze the juices out of it and then spit out the fleshy parts? Or, are they just ingesting a small portion of what they are chewing ? They seem to enjoy gobbling up the food, but then spitting back out a large portion of what they bite off is puzzling to me.

[Happy_Puffer]

I feed my gsp frozen bloodworms and he eats them like a noodle slurping them in his mouth but when I feed him krill he does that. I think he just likes attacking it becaue he will eat some and then attack, spit out the pieces and do it all over again. He never goes back for the small pieces. It looks like he is just making sure its dead or doesn't move away from him .

[Pufferpunk]

Yes, puffers are extremely messy eaters! Mine even squirts food out of their gills sometimes. This is why they need extra large tanks, to dilute the mess.