The Puffer Forum

After reading this forum, I have read that most other people's puffers actually crunch the snail, shell and all, up to eat them. My little girlie likes to just pull the snail outta the shell to eat them. Sometimes she only bites off half of the snail and leaves some still in the shell. Is this normal? Is she still getting the teeth waering benefit of the snail's shells eventhough she isn't crunching them? I have been plucking out snail shells when she finishes just to avoid any param problems the half bit snails might cause.

LuvBugz wrote:After reading this forum, I have read that most other people's puffers actually crunch the snail, shell and all, up to eat them. My little girlie likes to just pull the snail outta the shell to eat them. Sometimes she only bites off half of the snail and leaves some still in the shell. Is this normal? Is she still getting the teeth waering benefit of the snail's shells eventhough she isn't crunching them? I have been plucking out snail shells when she finishes just to avoid any param problems the half bit snails might cause.

my puffers do the same. and yes they do. they are still scraping their teeth against the shell to get the meat so they are still getting the benefits of wearing down their teeth. its actually sort of funny seeing them swim around with snail shells stuck on their heads from trying to get the last little bit of meat out. haha.

Try smaller snails--about the size of the puffer's eye or crush the snail (yuk), so the puffer has to crunch the shell pieces to get to the meat.

What type of puffer? The dwarf species don't usually crunch the shells just because they are so small, but for the larger ones you should be feeding snails the size of the puffer's eye or crushing them, as Pufferpunk said. Otherwise, no, they aren't wearing their teeth down.

i agree with feeding the puffers snails the size of there eye. snails are easy to breed so just get something to breed them in and let them grow to the perfect size instead of feeding her big big snails

It also depends on the species. Not all puffers take snails. Some piscivores don't like snails a lot. But piscivores don't have the same growth of teeth as other puffers. My suvatti tank ended up being a snail breeder because the puffer wouldn't touch them. Unfortunately I don't dare to put my hand into the tank to take out the snails.

Try crunching the snails. Then there will be pieces of shell in the meat, and the puffer will have to put his teeth against shell.

Hey luvbugz you can try crushing the snail with a hammer or something and then feed it .Then they will have to eat the shell to go for the meat.

Pliers would be less messy, you really don't need a hammer--even just use your fingers to squish them

I use the blunt end of a pen for small snails... Whatever's handy and clean will do.

Thanks all for the replies. She is a F8 and I am feeding her ramshorns that I breed in 3 other tanks. I am trying to pull out the smaller ones. I might have to resort to squishing them for her (gross!). The shells are pretty soft since they are still really little. I can crunch them with my fingers (still yucky!).