The Puffer Forum

I went to the creek earlier in search of new, cool rocks and driftwood. I didn't find any but what i did find was about a dozen large snails in the water, as well as roughly 5-6 crayfish. The crayfish are pretty small. About an inch long each, maybe a little longer. Anyway, i have them all, snails and crayfish, in a 1g bowl at the moment for observation. I snapped a couple of pics so you guys could help me identify them and tell me if they're suitable to feed to Smudge, my GSP.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g224/ ... ish005.jpg

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g224/ ... ish004.jpg

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g224/ ... ish003.jpg

The snails are kind of difficult to see in the pictures. They look just like normal nerita snails. There are the 2 kinds of crayfish, too. Black and brown.

I didn't go with intentions of finding crayfish or else i would've brought a net and a better bag for easy catching.

I picked out about 500 nice, juicy snails out of a lake this summer. Froze them & then defrosted in vitamin water. The puffers love them!

There were definitely hundreds of snails all along the waterline. I'll have to go back before it gets too cold and harvest a whole bunch. Any ideas on the crayfish?

Well, i know that Smudge will eat crayfish now.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g224/ ... sh2001.jpg

be careful crays can snap back. You might want to consider declawing it when it is that size.

For some reason almost all the black crays have 1 claw. I'll probably declaw them next time though. I wonder if it'd be possible to breed these crays.

xvCODY wrote:For some reason almost all the black crays have 1 claw. I'll probably declaw them next time though. I wonder if it'd be possible to breed these crays.

If I remember correctly, only having one claw denotes to the sex of the cray fish. I think it means that it is female. One small claw is female, and two normal sized claws are male. It has been a really long time since I lived in Alabama though, LoL. We used to go out after it rained all kinds in to the bottom half of the 6 acres and use our toes to find them xD then we would bring them home, clean them up and go fishing.

I wonder how easily i could breed these crayfish

I bet they will breed easy, but keeping the babies alive will be the hard part.

Lots and lots and lots of hiding places, plenty of food and you should be good

Make sure the snails aren't too hard

Those snails looks like American phyla natricina, They have a very soft shell, no need to crush and very easy to breed and rise.

Just, i have to warn you about possible parasites... when i caught some live food from nature i never feed my puffers with this snails... i wait until the first generation specimens (called: F0, born in the wild) breed and rise their babies, then this new generation (Called: F1, With wild fathers but born in captivity) are ok, and free from parasites...

Or you can freeze if you are not interested on making a Snail Farm ñ_ñ

I can confirm that these snails are extremely HARD. Took me quite a few smacks to crack it. (I have to crush them for Smudge to eat).

I would definitely avoid them. It's possible that he could chip his teeth on them, even the shrapnel of a crushed shell. If you could extract the snail alone, that would be good. Just my suggestion. Crushing them may be enough if you feel he isn't trying to bite the shell.

Im not sure about the snails kind... Lymnaea stagnates or phyla natricina... These are soft...
But I'm not sure.

Anyway if xvCODY has already try them, the best information is the one based on experience, avoid them could prevent a disgusting moment... try to crush one and see how hard are.

Pd: whats on the surlaW tooth? bacon? hahahaha ñ_ñ

I would just make sure to freeze the crays before feeding to prevent pathogens getting to your puffer.

@goldie ~ are there really crayfish species where the female only grows one claw? That seems awfully strange for crayfish. The marmorkrebs I breed lose claws occasionally, but they always grow back when they molt.