The Puffer Forum

One of our GSPs is quite plump, like it's always overfed (or ate a rock lol). We noticed that he eats algae off of the fake plants all the time and we are beginning to wonder if that is keeping him full.

Is this common for GSPs to do? Does anyone else know anything about this or have any experiences with it?

My fish do that ALL the time.
It maybe be normal.

Mine would always bite on the rocks. There were teeth marks everywhere. Elvis gets dried seaweed. He loves it! I just show him the bag and he starts to go nuts. So yes I would say it's normal.

My GSP loves algae (you can see little circular bite marks all over the rocks) and seaweed strips, too.

Man are you guys lucky! I wish mine would start eating the algae! Their tank is overrun with diatoms! Even 3 nerites can't keep up with it, lol.

Dont the puffers eat/kill the snails?

They can if they can get them overturned. However, nerites have super dense shells so for the most part they are safe.

i just caught my F8 eating algae today. he was nipping it off a rock at the bottom of the tank.

My DPs do it.

My DPs actually bite at the live plants that are in their tank.

So does this algae eating keep your puffers full? The one of ours that does eat algae is always full looking... LOL

Well, they still eat bloodworms like little piggies, so, no.

Mine eat my live rock. Actually, they eat anything in the tank. I have teeth marks over everything, but they don't seem to seek out algae. They also eat everything like normal, so I don't think it keeps them full. Try not feeding them for a few days and see if their tummies get small.

I wouldn't quit feeding. The algae won't keep them full. Even if they filled their tummies with it, it wouldn't meet their nutritional needs.

Oh, i didn't mean like they were actually full, but the one looks full. We definitely still feed them like normal and they definitley stil eat like normal! The one that eats all the algae just looks full all the time. LOL