The Puffer Forum

i am severly allergic to blood and blackworms.i have been giving them live ghost shrimp and frozen mysis shrimp.the couple of snails i have dont even turn their heads.i think they are nerite snails?everything ive read states the snails should be eyeball size.the couple i have are larger than that. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

Snails are best, you'll want pond or ramshorn (nerites and malaysian trumpets are too hard, they can break their teeth on them).

For the blackworms, are you allergic to them live or just freeze dried? Its usually the freeze drying process that causes problems for most people. If you know its just the freeze drying, start looking for live blackworms. If you don't know for sure, don't risk it

You could try small earthworms and crickets, depending on the size of your puffers. If you pick up some raw, frozen shrimp at the grocery store, thaw one out in some tank water and when its thawed out, let them nibble on pieces of it. Just don't leave big chunks in there to rot, pull out what they don't eat. If they like that, you can try other seafood like scallops, prawns, etc.

Sometimes you can find a regular fish food that these guys will eat, I've had some luck with the New Life Spectrum line of foods, but they can be picky.

Off the top of my head:

-ramshorn snails
-pond snails
-shrimp
-mussels
-squid
-octopus
-algae wafers
-NLS wafers
-krill
-plankton