The Puffer Forum

I'm very happy to say that I now have ALL of my puffers eating earthworms! I had originally bought them to try and get my big Congo, Orangey, to eat them because he was refusing any other food and only eating an Endler every once in a while, but not enough to fill out his frame and he was looking very skinny. I was definitely worried about him.
The rest of my puffers took right to the earthworms, especially the Ceylons and my Baileyi, they absolutely love them! It took a while longer to get my Cutcutia and turgidus puffers to eat them, but they've finally come around now. So it was basically just hoping that Orangey would start eating them. I kept putting them in his tank, and would take them out the next morning when he hadn't eaten them. Well today he was up and around, out of the sand, so I thought I'd try them again. I put 2 in his tank and he immediately came over, gave them the evil eye and sucked them in! Poof! They were gone! So I added another just to see, and indeed he took that one too. I am soooo happy because he was looking very thin and I know that's not good with this species. So I'm hoping now that he's eating the earthworms that I can get some weight put on him, get him looking as nice as his smaller counterpart, Biscuit (my other orange Congo).
So now all my puffers are eating regularly, and looking good. BeeBoo has his appetite back with both shrimp and earthworms, so that's a good thing. It's nice when you know they are all eating and you don't have to worry about anyone (at least not the issue of eating).

I have extreme earthworm happiness!!

excellent - well done you x

Thanks hali

Yea & YUM! Great source of protein.
Hint: I gut-load my worms with ground plankton/krill & old flakes.

Hi Pufferpuggirl,

I've only given mine a couple of earthworms. By the sound of that, I should try them with more - still loads in the filter box on the pond

regarding earth worms - do you use the common garden worm or are they specific worms - and where do you get them

ps i can only find blood worm here in the uk and not blackworm/? south wales i am - ??

I wish I could find tiny ones. All my fish are too small to eat regular ones.

LilGreenPuffer wrote:I wish I could find tiny ones. All my fish are too small to eat regular ones.

Chop 'em in half or in thirds. You could always freeze the remaining pieces and keep the box of worms in the fridge. ! Thaw pieces in vitamin water.

Though if the appeal is the wiggle they do ... That would probably be lost on a piece of dead worm.

thats great news,
id like to see how pufferpunk gutloads em sounds like good way to feed puffs what they dont want to eat.

Yeah, PP, do you just sprinkle the food in the container with them on the dirt?

LilGreenPuffer wrote:I wish I could find tiny ones. All my fish are too small to eat regular ones.

In the Spring you can find very small baby ones under rocks, logs...pretty much anything that sits on dirt...

Many fishing places carry two types of worms.. just regular "worms" which are pretty thin and small, and "nightcrawlers" which are much larger. My turgidus can handle about one whole nightcrawler and Paris will eat 2-3 in a sitting, but I can see how one would be too big for something like a figure 8.

Good to hear Suzanne!!

autophotos wrote:regarding earth worms - do you use the common garden worm or are they specific worms - and where do you get them

ps i can only find blood worm here in the uk and not blackworm/? south wales i am - ??

Look around and see if you can find "angling shops" in your area, that's where I get mine from. They usually have a small container and then a much bigger container. Obviously since I have quite a few to feed, I get the bigger container. As far as I know, these are just regular "earthworms", but I don't know very much about worms. There are many different sizes within the container I get though, small ones and bigger ones. I even give these to my dwarf mudskippers!

could you post a picture of said worms - as if they are the common garden worm i can get some easily