The Puffer Forum

Hey guys so i want to spice up my kids diet. Unfortunatly my LFS totally sucks. They are all chain stores and even the 2 little non chain LFS that i have suck. So I totally live in the worest fish place in the world! Anyways Currently I have my GSP on Earth Worms. Frozen Krill and Frozen Brine Shrimp. And they eat the dried shrimp as well. What else can i keep these kids. Oh yea sorry they also get Snails for a meal once a week. But i cannot get Ghost Shrimp or anything else where i am what should i do? I don't know if they will eat Raw shrimp from the grocery store. and i really dont want to buy a huge bag of shrimp if they arent gonna chow on it. They seem to be picky eaters. anyone know anywhere i can order like a small amount of different foods to try them on to see what they like currently?

At the grocery store, see if the seafood department will give you just a single raw shell on shrimp. I asked to test shrimp and the guy just gave me one. You can take it home and freeze it over night, thaw it and just have the one piece to try. Also can look to see what kind of shell fish they have raw in the seafood section. I have even seen large frozen bags of shellfish meat at our local Kroger, but I haven't looked to see if it is raw or not.

Great idea

Or if there is a Wal-Mart near you (just for food, not for buying puffers mind you) ... I know over here, we've got Asda, which is part of Wal-Mart and they've got bags of frozen jumbo shrimp and mussels too. But like Hierony stated, you can always get small quantities of seafood at the fresh seafood bar at some grocery stores. I've bought large crab claws to try them and my puffers loved them. Made quite a mess, but loved them.

Guaranteed ur puff will like shrimp. Try Clams too. Always freeze the fresh foods first to kil any hitch hiker parasites. And JMO you should be feeding alot more snails. Ive been feeding 6-10 a day for 9 months. My puffs(GSP) and it still looks like one is ready for a tooth trimming which I am not looking forward too. So just try to get alot more crunchy foods in there diet aswell as the stuff others mentioned. Make sure whatever u get at the market is fresh/raw uncooked and shell-on.

As for just food I use frozen BW, Dried BW, Frozen Krill, Dried Krill, Market Shrimp( raw shell-on), Baby little neck clams( raw shell-on), Mysis Shrimp, Live Brine shrimp, Frozen Brine shrimp, Live blackworms, Ghost shrimp, and TONS ,TONS of snails daily.
Usually ill feed snails and a small side dish along with it and mix it up daily.

hmm i have had my GSP for 6 months now and i still cant even see there teeth at all. I thought i was doing good. lol

It was like that for me too then it semed like recenly his teeth just started growing and never stopped. I been feeding a crap ton of snails too.

Only reason I said that was BC to prevent you from having to do dental work in the future. And IMO use ramshorn. Pond snails do nothing. Thats prolly my prob lately. All my rammys just disappeared and the pond snails took over. So ill prolly start another tank with just ramshorn snails and no pond snails bc there shells are just too soft for beak wearing.

oh i didn't take it the wrong way when you said that lol. I am glad you said it the snails i get to be honest i am not sure what kind they are i just get "Pest" snails from my LFS the little ones that are all in the tanks and get in the filter and stuff they give me all the ones i want for free when i go in. Do you know what they could be there all so tiny and brown

Bcgirl304 wrote:hmm i have had my GSP for 6 months now and i still cant even see there teeth at all. I thought i was doing good. lol

BABY GSP thats prolly why. Forever I couldnt see my puffs teeth too. After about a year now I can see them well on one of the puffs( he might be getting robbed of snails from my other GSP too)

ahh yea they are still little tots. I am sure i will see a toothy smile at some point

Do they have a pointed shell but still somewhat round...then they're pond snails. Which r too soft IMO.

Ramshorn have a sprial like shell.

MTS snails have a cone or trumpet shaped shell. ( which can be too hard of a shell and crack our puffs teeth if big)

to be honest i am not sure but when i go out to get some this weekend i will check and inspect them closely its def not trupmet or cone shaped its def either a rammy or pond for sure. hopefully Rammy! butttt prolly not