The Puffer Forum

Hi, I was wondering if anyone can suggest some other foods that I can feed my freshwater Puffers. I have Dwarf Puffers, South American Puffers and a Green Spotted Puffer. Right now I am feeding them mostly bloodworms, which they absolutely love. I've tried offering them king prawn (shrimp), but they aren't very interested in the prawn - and of course they get snails for their teeth. But I would like to offer them something different. I mean, I'd get bored if I only ate one thing and since it seems that they are mainly only interested in the bloodworm, it would be nice if I could find something else that they would love just as much.
Any suggestions my dear Puffer people?

Here is the feeding article from the library.
library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/

You are aware the Green Spotted are not FW puffers? And they're in 3 different tanks, right?

Thanks for reminding me about the library, I hadn't thought of that.

Yes, I know that GSP's are not freshwater, and yes, they are in their own tank, but the Dwarfs and the SAP's are in the same tank, and they are doing just fine.

I will try to get some of the foods mentioned in the article.

they might like blackworms as well since they are very similar

Well I went and got a seafood mixture for them. It consisted of mussels, squid pieces and of course shrimp (prawns). I cut all the pieces up carefully and when I put it in the tank, all my Puffers just watched it float past them. They were not interested. They looked at me like - "where's the bloodworms you daft girl!"

I'd like to see them eating something other than bloodworms, so I will keep trying.

Live blackworms look like bloodworms and wiggle when you put them in. I had to use blackworms for my redline he wouldn't eat anything at all and now he will eat bloodworms because they look like blackworms i think.

Let them get really hungry.. no food for two or three days. Then they'll be more willing to eat what you give them, and when they realize it tastes good, it will be a lot easier to feed it to them.

That said, when I had dwarf puffers, the only food they'd accept from me was live blackworms. Everything else they preferred to hunt down on their own. They were in a very heavily planted tank with tons of shrimp and snails and other such "bugs" to eat though

Because I have South American Puffers, which need their teeth trimmed .... I am trying to breed my own snails in another tank, and so far, I have quite a few. I haven't been giving them any snails, it's been several weeks since I last gave them any. So I'm hoping that, once I have enough snails, I can hold off on feeding them any bloodworms (which they absolutely love!) and then start putting snails in with them and if they are hungry enough, they will eat the snails instead of begging for bloodworms. I just hope I can resist giving in to their cute little begging faces.

[quote="schismy007"]Well I went and got a seafood mixture for them. It consisted of mussels, squid pieces and of course shrimp (prawns).

Was all this raw, or cooked? Sometimes those bags of mixed seafood in the freezer section at the store contain only cooked stuff. And you definitely do not want cooked.

It was a cooked mixture, but to be honest, I haven't fed any of it to my Puffers yet, just my dogs. What is wrong with cooked food? I feed my other fish cooked shrimp and they love it, and haven't had any adverse reactions so far.

Its not necessarily that its bad for them (I don't think) but that its kind of pointless. Cooking takes out a lot of the nutrients.

Yeah, I thought that too, but when I bought raw shrimp the puffers would not touch it, just watched it go by and it laid in the tank putrifying. But when I cut up cooked shrimp, they will eat small portions of it, although they much prefer the bloodworms.