The Puffer Forum

Hello I'm new to the site so hello everyone

I was just wondering if anyone has tried feeding their Puffer Crickets?

As alsorts of insects must fall in the water in the wild

Just thought it might be a nice crunchy treat for them

I've just cycled my tank and I'm picking up my Mbu in 2 days can't wait!

ps. I have read all the feeding techniques on here and various other sties so don't worry about posting back to me the sort of things that Puffers normally eat

I have an A. modestus that has eaten crickets before; we have some at work and I give them a cricket once a week.

My GSP eats them like candy and your exactly correct, they are a great crunchy snack. Here's one, anyone that ice fishes....can you feed puffer wax worms?

I used to keep frogs & turtles, so my puffers got crickets on a regular basis. They were gut loaded with fish food & fed oranges for hydration.

Pufferpunk wrote:I used to keep frogs & turtles, so my puffers got crickets on a regular basis. They were gut loaded with fish food & fed oranges for hydration.

Back up... fish get dehydrated?

I have fed my GSP's crickets before and they enjoyed them, my Fahaka really likes millworms (is that the same as waxworms?) I've yet to try giving him a cricket...but may when i get home>

Christemo wrote:

Pufferpunk wrote:I used to keep frogs & turtles, so my puffers got crickets on a regular basis. They were gut loaded with fish food & fed oranges for hydration.

Back up... fish get dehydrated?

I think she was talking about the crickets getting dehydrated.

hahahaha I can just imagine a fish swimming around saying " water... water... I need water..."

I always wondered about things like crickets, especially after reading an article on the ultimate reef forums about garlic in fish foods.
something along the lines of... the digestive tracts of an aquatic animal are not able to properly digest certain lipids/fatty acids that are contained in land based food stuffs and can cause liver failure amongst other things... the link is below, the most interesting part is on page 2, third post down, it's by wombat...

http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/show ... p?t=288311

This is based on marine fish though, but it's well worth the read, and I thought it might have similar consequences with freshwater fish seeing as they are water based

actually, SW fish can get dehydrated...

As far as feeding waxworms, mealworms & the likes--they are extremely fatty & their skin (chiton) ia very difficult to digest.

Pufferpunk wrote:As far as feeding waxworms, mealworms & the likes--they are extremely fatty & their skin (chiton) ia very difficult to digest.

That's what I was worried about. I had problems with my Bearded Dragon and had to limit the amount of mealworms we fed him due to the high chiton causing digestive problems. I gave my GSP some crickets and it was an interesting sight, he picked them apart and then spit out the exoskeleton. I had little cricket shells in the bottom of the tank.....

humm....we have beardies too..but don't feed alot of mealworms anymore. Thanks for letting us know that they can cause the digestive problems i was totally unaware. We them a pretty good mixed diet of lettus, crickets, superworms, and pinkie mice. They've done pretty well so far.

busybones wrote:humm....we have beardies too..but don't feed alot of mealworms anymore. Thanks for letting us know that they can cause the digestive problems i was totally unaware. We them a pretty good mixed diet of lettus, crickets, superworms, and pinkie mice. They've done pretty well so far.

The superworms and crickets are relatively the same thing as mealworms, same composition. If your going to use them for a beardie, gut load them real well and use them only like once or twice a week.

Thanks for the replys guys that's great, think I might buy a few today.

While we're on the subjest of food I dropped in a single piece of corn on the cob and he munched it down (not going to keep feeding him it was just curious to know whether he'd like it).

The thing is before that he wouldn't eat anything (he's new to the tank), I tried cockle meat, blood worm, krill and he wouldn't touch any of it!

Maybe he's a vegetarian puffer?