My GSPs are scared of their own food!!!

[DeFishy]

Well, as odd as it sounds this is the case! I had one puffer originally, Shuo and he's about 2 inches. Because I didn't have any snails available to me by any fish store in my area I was told some ghost shrimp would be a good idea to help keep his beak trimmed as well as to provide food. Well! It didn't quite work like that. Shuo was cornered several times after trying to nip one of the shrimp, (the shrimp would gang up on him and drive him into a corner) in which case he'd go and sulk for a little while and then resume swimming around. To try to encourage him to go after the shrimp I bought a second GSP, Loki, who, though smaller, got along really well. They've never fought, and even on the first day Loki went and curled up next to Shuo like kittens. It was adorable! So, after a while they'd take a couple of nips at the shrimp but either there is some syndicate that they've created and they've come to a truce, or my lil' ones have no interest in live food. They leave eachother alone, in a way its not a bad thing as the shrimp eat what the puffers havn't, but it's disconcerting because I need to keep their beaks trimmed and I don't know how to do it now! (not without doing it myself, which terrifies me, though they don't need it yet). I was wondering if anyone had any sugestions that are easy to locate (I did get some snails but the lil' ones have pretty much ignored them). Any thoughts? Any advice?

[sparks42]

hmmm my 2 puffers love ghost shrimp, but they have a hard time catching them. So there' been 2 ghost shrimp in the tank for just over a week now. sometimes the puffers see them, but again have such a hard time catching them.

and i am shocked that they are ignoring snails !

[Agnate]

What kind of snails are you using? Are the shells cone-shaped and have spirals?

I've noticed that my puffers don't like Malaysian Trumpet Snails (MTS) because the shells are too hard and they can get what they want. I find Pond snails are work a lot better.

My two Ceylons were also hard to feed snails at first. They didn't really recognize what they were, so the snails would just end up dying. I found the trick was to show them the snails through the glass beforehand (so they knew what they were going to be fed), and then hold the snail near the top until they come grab it. You might get nipped a couple times, but they're still babies, so it shouldn't hurt too much (though it will startle you, hehe).