The Puffer Forum

Im not sure if it is okay to do this, but i have a 15 gallon tank that have shrimp in them and some other small fish, could i take out the other fish and just breed shrimp for the sole purpose of feeding them to my FIgure 8's? They are ghost shrimp, does anyone do this? any info would be great. thanks!

I'm sure your Figure 8 would love some live food. My little puffer Camille absolutely loves chasing down and devouring ghost shrimp. Do keep in mind though, that ghost shrimp don't offer much in the way of nutrition, so be sure to gut load them first.

Also ghost shrimp need brackish water to breed, and from what ive read are one of the harder shrimps to breed for that purpose. Red Cherrys are much easier to breed, they are freshwater and rcs babies look like little shrimp instead of larvae like ghost shrimp do

i did end up getting cherrys, can someone give me some details on what gut loading is/ the best way to do it?

Gut loading means feed the shrimp well with good food

Gut loading is simply feeding the shrimp good quality food before you feed them to your puffer. essentially you are just feeding your puffer that good quality fo food through the shrimp

what are the best food to gut load my shrimp on?

Well fed and well maintained true shrimp are actually quite nutritious. Do not confuse real shrimp with frozen or LFS live brine shrimp, which are very poor nutritionally.

Breeding ghost shrimp is not as straight-forward as beeding snails or red Cherry shrimp. The adults tend to cannibalize the babies, and only one of the multiple species I have tried is easy to breed and still require moving berried females into heavily planted tanks on their own. That species has very short planktonic fry stage and settles out quickly. It also will breed in FW. The other species all have extended plantonic stages, so are not at all practical for home breeding.

The disadvantage to shrimp is that their shells offer very little crunch, so do not wear down the incisor plates (teeth) as snails and bivalve mollusks do.

HTH

I prefer gut-loading with algae wafers, so my puffers get their veggies.

thanks, i went out today and got them some sinking algae disks...they seem to like them

can anyone else think of some good foods i can gut-load them with? perhaps things from home i can give them.

any veggies, blanch them first though.

I know my crayfish will eat anything I put in the tank. Watched multiple ones fight over a earthworm today

Dark lettuces frozen on cookie sheets and then crumbled into small plastic bags are staples for my snails (and some non-puffer fish). Ditto pieces of cucumber and melons (but you should dig the seeds out before freezing).