The Puffer Forum

ok so ive done research here and there about puffer fish diet and feeding, and almost every resource says they need some crunch in their diet for their teeth. my question is is there such thing as too much crunch??? what i mean by that is can i feed my puffers a diet of shellfish all or majority of the time??? or will all that hard matter affect their digestive system or cause problems internally??? i have a fahaka that has been fed only crayfish his entire life, will his life be cut short because of this??? any help would be great thanks

Nope, that's pretty much all they eat in the wild.

so it would probably be fine then for all my puffers to have this type of diet??? i have an endless supply of crayfish, freshwater clams, prawns and different types of snails, it would be great if thats all i would ever need to feed them

Yes but if you're scooping them up from a lake/river, you either need to QT or freeze them.

yeah its actuall coming from my lo'i in our backyard, we dont grow taro anymore so i started rasing food for my fishes, never had any of my other fish catch a disease or parasite from the fish and shellfish i raise there, our lo'i's are fed from a natural spring close to our house, no invasive species or disease made it here yet "thank god", with the exception of the crayfish which are in a pond not fed from the stream

Well, if you're sure there aren't any parasites they might be carrying.

volcomlifer wrote:i have an endless supply of crayfish, freshwater clams, prawns and different types of snails,

Must be nice, I got to pay for 90% you mentioned.

Sorry just got to ask, what does lo'i's mean?

the only sure thing is there is no such thing as a sure thing lol, cant remember who said that but wont ever forget it, and yes ive been using these to feed my fish for almost 20 years, never had any parasites or anything

yes it is great to have these things free, especially living here when times are hard it really helps me to have kept all the fish i have over the years

a lo'i is a taro patch, its the irrigation system used by the ancient hawaiians to grow taro, since we dont do that for a living anymore i use a few to farm food for my fish