The Puffer Forum

Do dwarf puffers need a diet of snails? I've heard that they do to keep their beaks trimmed, but then again ive also heard that they aren't like other puffers and don't need them... which is right?

I think they do need snails,....lots of little ones( the size of their eyeball).

yep ... my babies eat very small baby snails. I scrape them off the tank with an old credit card, drop them in a glass then give them to the puffs.

DP's incisor plates are so thin that crushing snails is not much of their repertory. They are more like many loaches - they love and relish snails, but they do do much crushing. A bit of abrasion is all they get. that said, they are part of the DP diet for me, about half in fact. I feed them mainly live blackworms (via a cone feeder) and very small ramshorns.

HTH

Small snails seem to be the ones as Dps seem to take only one or two bites and that's it. A big snail would be killed by this and then rot in the Tank.
Small snails seem to be sucked out. I don't see DPs crushing any shells at all. I suck up many empty small shells when cleaning.
Don't buy snails only go to LFS store to ask for thier pest snails and quarenteen for a few days. I think I sussed out why lots of my MTS snails die in my snail tank. They are a tropical snail and only live in warm water. The water in my snail tank was unheated and so they froze!!
-Jerry