The Puffer Forum

are tadpoles poisonous to fish, i found some i was wondering if i could feed them to my puffers.??

good Q.. I am interested in that answer also

I can only say that I have seen a guy feeding baby tads to his dwarf puffers on youtube. It was something he did on a regular basis and bred them himself. Right or wrong, I know not for certain.

It should be no problem--except to the tadpoles.

I have no idea, im sure some species are but i dont know if any of them live in the U.S. just dont forget to quarantine.

thanks all the question was because i found like 1,000 of them in my freinds tarp over her pool and was cleaning it so i took some bout a week ago and now they are decent sized i was wondering if i could feed the puffs em since i dont have food for them atm.......

I hope not my Koi take enough in each year.

sao870 wrote:thanks all the question was because i found like 1,000 of them in my freinds tarp over her pool and was cleaning it so i took some bout a week ago and now they are decent sized i was wondering if i could feed the puffs em since i dont have food for them atm.......

Sorry man but in my opinion you should never feed wild live stuff without quarantine.

they have been quarentine for bout a week

Your talking about feeding them to your GSPs? IMO that would be the same as feeding them fedder guppies and would not make a good diet for them at all. But takeing into concideration it would be better then nothing for a short period of time untill you can get them a better diet.

yea i fed them some today only one of them ate them the other was not interested at all..... ones always picky tho.

Bcummings8521 wrote:Your talking about feeding them to your GSPs? IMO that would be the same as feeding them fedder guppies and would not make a good diet for them at all. But takeing into concideration it would be better then nothing for a short period of time untill you can get them a better diet.

Maybe slightly different .. tadpoles will have a higher nutrient content than full grown fish (or frogs for that matter). WC food is always a touchy subject.

J-P wrote:

Bcummings8521 wrote:Your talking about feeding them to your GSPs? IMO that would be the same as feeding them fedder guppies and would not make a good diet for them at all. But takeing into concideration it would be better then nothing for a short period of time untill you can get them a better diet.

Maybe slightly different .. tadpoles will have a higher nutrient content than full grown fish (or frogs for that matter). WC food is always a touchy subject.

I can understand them being more nutritious for maybe a week or two after hatching since they will still contain some nutrients from the yolk sack but after thats depleted there on the same diet and burn more of there energy then a normal fish would because there body is constantly changeing growing new cells and getting rid of others.... or am i missing something

no it is not the same diet .. as tadpoles they eat vegetation and aquatic insects .. as adults it is a pure insect diet. Also as tadpoles they have a higher consumption rate so they will be loaded with "goodies"

I don't know if those "goodies" are good for puffers or not... those insects could contain pesticides, venom .. etc.. making them poisonous.

I am just thinking of some native North American frogs, that can kill you if you eat them.. never mind the south american kind. Similar to puffers, they can become poisonous depending on the diet. That is why this is such an interesting question

I didnt think all of them ate insect just the big carniverouse and canabalistic kinds did. I know that certain species of frog will develope 2 different types of tadpoles ones that are docile and others that are extremely aggressive towards anything especially the smaller docile ones. This way even in short food supply and withering ponds the strongest tadpoles will make it.