only eating snails.... (w/pics)
Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:27 pm
so i've had my f8 for over a month and s/he seems happy/healthy -good color, not too thin, not much pacing, explores whole tank, etc.
the LPS had several f8s including this one for about a month and a half before i bought her. they were housed with many ghost shrimp of all sizes and were being fed frozen brine shrimp daily and pond snails from the plant holding tank weekly...
so i bought some brine shrimp in case i needed a "transitional food" as she adjusted to her new home (but i now know they are a nutritionally poor food), and about a dozen of the ghost shrimp.
she lives in a 20g long and current salinity is about 1.003 with live plants and 4 neon tetras (which i wouldn't mind if were eaten, i just ran out of tanks for them during some rebuilds). she hasn't yet touched or chased the tetras or a male guppy that was in the tank until yesterday (i fed it to my RES turtle), and has never appeared to chase or eat the ghost shrimp. none of the shrimp have "gone missing" and 2 of them are now well berried -and they can't feel too much like prey if they're breeding!
the thing is, she seems to only want to eat snails lately. i have a dedicated ten gallon for pond snails and cherry shrimp (3 of them are now berried too, i hope to try feeding them to puff after the numbers increase), and i have just added some red ramshorns to breed in there as well for feeders. that tank gets (as needed) hikari algae wafers, some tropical flake, things like blanched napa cabbage, and they nibble on any algae or damaged plant leaves in there. does this diet mean the snails/shrimp count as gut-loaded?
and those snails are all my puff wants lately. she also took 2 little bites out the foot of a large apple snail i put in her tank for a trial, and appeared very excited about it. it did take her about 4 days to attempt to eat the golden apple snail (BTW, it's nearly as big as her!) but then i removed the snail right away -it was far too big for her to kill, just nip and maim which seemed very cruel... i quickly put the apple back in the breeder tank (it will recover, eyes and tentacles all intact and the mantle will regenerate quickly..). but that made me wonder -do they have a "learning curve" to discover that a new live food is in fact a food?
and she used to eat frozen and thawed head-n-shell on shrimp about an inch long but now ignores them. she has also ignored other frozen and thawed shellfish (mussels, clam, etc.). she won't touch anything freeze-dried and rehydrated (even w/garlic soak). i plan to try some blackworms, bloodworms, or occasional earthworms asap, but can't find any in my area just now (may need to drive to the city or something).
should i be worried that the puff isn't getting appropriate nutrition right now?
the LPS had several f8s including this one for about a month and a half before i bought her. they were housed with many ghost shrimp of all sizes and were being fed frozen brine shrimp daily and pond snails from the plant holding tank weekly...
so i bought some brine shrimp in case i needed a "transitional food" as she adjusted to her new home (but i now know they are a nutritionally poor food), and about a dozen of the ghost shrimp.
she lives in a 20g long and current salinity is about 1.003 with live plants and 4 neon tetras (which i wouldn't mind if were eaten, i just ran out of tanks for them during some rebuilds). she hasn't yet touched or chased the tetras or a male guppy that was in the tank until yesterday (i fed it to my RES turtle), and has never appeared to chase or eat the ghost shrimp. none of the shrimp have "gone missing" and 2 of them are now well berried -and they can't feel too much like prey if they're breeding!
the thing is, she seems to only want to eat snails lately. i have a dedicated ten gallon for pond snails and cherry shrimp (3 of them are now berried too, i hope to try feeding them to puff after the numbers increase), and i have just added some red ramshorns to breed in there as well for feeders. that tank gets (as needed) hikari algae wafers, some tropical flake, things like blanched napa cabbage, and they nibble on any algae or damaged plant leaves in there. does this diet mean the snails/shrimp count as gut-loaded?
and those snails are all my puff wants lately. she also took 2 little bites out the foot of a large apple snail i put in her tank for a trial, and appeared very excited about it. it did take her about 4 days to attempt to eat the golden apple snail (BTW, it's nearly as big as her!) but then i removed the snail right away -it was far too big for her to kill, just nip and maim which seemed very cruel... i quickly put the apple back in the breeder tank (it will recover, eyes and tentacles all intact and the mantle will regenerate quickly..). but that made me wonder -do they have a "learning curve" to discover that a new live food is in fact a food?
and she used to eat frozen and thawed head-n-shell on shrimp about an inch long but now ignores them. she has also ignored other frozen and thawed shellfish (mussels, clam, etc.). she won't touch anything freeze-dried and rehydrated (even w/garlic soak). i plan to try some blackworms, bloodworms, or occasional earthworms asap, but can't find any in my area just now (may need to drive to the city or something).
should i be worried that the puff isn't getting appropriate nutrition right now?
