The Puffer Forum

I have 4 saps now parametres are all well etc...
all feeding well on frozen bloodworm and frozen shelled prawns and snails etc...
just wondering as ive seen something on here about internal parasites!! how can i tell these, how do i prevent etc...
they all eat fine, 1 is quite fatter than the others and the others go back to being really skinny, bearing in mind they are all about an inch big!!
any suggestions would be appreciated, am not worried, just interested !!! cheers

Earth worms will fatten up a puffer..BUT SAPs need hard shelled foods for their fast growing teeth so I would do like 70-90% hard shelled food and maybe throw in some worms (small pieces of worms for little puffers) .

However, you should still treat for IPs just incase with any puffer you aquire..it is just so common for them to have IPs and then die. Signs of IPs are white poops, lumpy belly, a pinched look in their belly that quickly returns after eating. Please remember that puffer poop can sometimes be the color of what they eat..so if you feed shrimp for a few days their poop might be light in color.

All that being said, it is common for one puffer in a tank containing other puffers to be bigger than the other puffers. Some puffers may be more dominant and they get more food or they may just be growing faster.

Treat for Ips and try feeding two small meals a day instead of one big meal a day.
Remember to treat the food not the tank. I soak blood worms in a little tank water mixed with 1/4 of a piece of a jungle tab.

great advice haha simple when ive thought about it and i will do exactly that!!! just a quick question, will it harm anything if they not got IPs am gunna research it now but experience beats evrything!! cheers

Give this a read library/hospital/internal-parasites-pre ... treatment/

Na it will not hurt them if you treat and they do not have ips. Most people treat for ips as soon as they get thier puffers just in case.

I would codone gluttony.

Treating new puffers for ip's as a precaution is good fishkeeping, it does not hurt them. They will soon fatten up. Please do not let them get overweight as this is not healthy.

But SAPs do require a very high-crunch diet. Soft diets mean constant incisor trimming. That diet is too soft for them.