My new boy Smooch loves his ghost shrimp which I gut load for him and also blood worms, but he just doesn't show any interest in eating meaty foods like mussel meat or prawn meat yet.
I know he's only a baby but I can't always get to the shop to buy feeder shrimp every week and the livebearers I have haven't 'popped' out babies yet
Anyone got any good tips on how to get him interested in other foods? I've tried 'fishing' in the tank with mussels and prawns but he looks at me as if I am stupid and hovers on by
Welcome to the world of the Congo puffer! They can be one of the pickiest of all puffers, in my opinion. I have one that happily eats mainly guppies that I breed, but will also take other food, and then I have one that is extremely fussy and so far is only interested in eating earthworms, but I figure at least he's eating. So you might want to try the earthworm route and see if your puffer will eat them. They are very nutritious and unlike prawn and mussel, earthworms don't contain thiaminase, so that's a bonus in my book.
With Orangey, my fussy one, I just had to keep putting the worms in, and removing them the next day. It took nearly a week of that before he was actually eating them. So keep trying is all I can advise.
Thanks petal I will go digging in the garden then. I have an organic garden in as much as I never add anything to the soil as I can never get through the brambles and overgrown honeysuckle and jasmine to see the earth
Hey Jennybugs...they are a bugger to train but once u do...your patience is paid off....i have to say it took me a good 6 weeks before she took any frozen food other than bloodworm..tried the sticks..tried the string so it looks alive and everything...one thing that worked for me is that when i had guppies Ziva was quite slow in catching them and i gave her a hand and caught the fish in the net and ziva would swim into the net and eat it....now thats how i used to get it to eat the frozen silver sides..u will get a puzzled luck cos uve tricked them haha but keep doing it with diff types of food and she will get the message.
i feed mine earth worms, mussells raw with shell, raw head on shrimp from macro(crevettes),bloodworms and silver sides
Thanks for the comments. Would my little'un at just 2 inches long manage mussel in shells I wonder.
I had to laugh the other day when I put a fair few ghost shrimp in the tank. I thought they could just mooch about and he woudleat them as and when he felt like it, but no...he ate 6 I think one after the other! His belly was such a strange shape afterwards and I was most alarmed
I'll pop the pics up tonight if they came out ok as he was so amusing.
Still trying to capture video of him about to bury himself as I love how he does that The OH is also now besotted with him so my plan worked
