The Puffer Forum

I have an MBU and a FAHAKA and they eat quite a few things. The Fahaka eats Massivore pellets and I was wondering if these would help keep his teeth worn down? My Mbu won't eat pellets yet so he still eats frozen foods. I tried a clam on both of them and all they did was wait till it opened and then ate it. I bought some snails from the supermarket and tried them after I rinsed and froze them. The puffers just looked at them and didn't even bother to try and eat them. So what is a guy to use to keep their teeth wore down? Thanks for any help!

Man, you must have a couple of HUGE tanks there!
Look here: library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/

Doesn't really answer my question. If they wait for the clams to open and don't bite at the shell how does that keep their teeth wore down. How would a soft shrimp shell do the same?

Did you read the article?

tman wrote:Doesn't really answer my question. If they wait for the clams to open and don't bite at the shell how does that keep their teeth wore down. How would a soft shrimp shell do the same?

These guys are natural obligate crustacean eaters and although Massivore pellets will keep them generally healthy, they are not the optimal food for them. Giving them closed clams and mussels should keep their teeth well under control but if they don't eat them they won't do any good. These are predatory fish and need to have that instinct stimulated once in a while, good live crayfish work well for this, really gets the hunting instinct going. These you can buy from most LFS or get them wild and quarantine them for a few weeks. Live snails, not frozen, should also stimulate them also. One other thing I found that works well for me is mussels on the half shell. Open them for them first and they scrape the teeth as they try to get the meet off the shell and alot of times they will crush the shell too.

There is more to food than just nutrition, it does play an impact on emotional state too (even on fish). Feed a guy boiled steaks all the time and he'll hate eating and get kind of in a rut. Give him one off the grill and he may not know that it is a good thing....

EDIT: One other thing I overlooked is to try to use a garlic extract on dead food. Soak for about 30 minutes prior to feeding, for some reason most puffers go wild over it and should help stimulate their appetite.

Even open shells will help, as the puffers scrape their teeth on the inside trying to get the food out (all in the article though).

Yeah, you could try scraping most of the meat out so that they really have to gnaw at it. And ditto about the live snails, crays, etc. Not only does it stimulate them mentally/emotionally (can't believe I just said that about a fish, I know), but the challenge of getting that tasty meat out of a shell will make them scrape their teeth on it at least a few times. Giving them more of smaller foods rather than one larger one will help too because of 2 reasons. 1. They have to go through more shells to get to the good stuff and 2. It gives them more time to hunt.