The Puffer Forum

I've been researching what to feed my 3" fahaka and most everybody agrees that crabs and/or crayfish should be part of their diet. Well, I tried feeding little fw crabs to my fahaka and both times he went for the crab he got pinched in the face. I am worried about his eye getting grabbed and being blinded. Is this the normal learning process for the fahaka? Do they eventually learn with age how go get the crabs and crayfish? Do fahakas even eat crabs and crayfish in their natural diet? And cutting off the pinchers before I throw them in just seems too cruel to me or unsportsman like.

Thanks for the help!

If you haven't already, see > this link < for an article from our library on puffer foods. It might give you some good ideas. Keep in mind that variety is important.

I've never fed live crabs before, so maybe someone with more experience here can answer better, but i imagine that once the puffers discover that the crabs are food they won't have much trouble getting the upper hand.

It may also be that he's still too small to take them on yet. He will get much larger.

By the way, what size tank do you have for him? Is he kept alone? And can we see a picture? It's always nice to put a face to the fish.

You can purchase female crabs--they don't have the big pincher.

Is this normal though for him to get pinched so often in the beginning until he learns? My main concern is that if fahakas don't eat crabs and crayfish naturally in the wild, they may not for a reason. Is it possible that I am putting him in potential harm, like being blind or worse? Or do they naturally eat these and take time to learn?

Oh, he will go into a 135 when he gets bigger. Right now he is by himself in a 20 gal long.

Thank you for the help. I appreciate all the help!

If you're concerned about injury you can remove the claws, or just get the females who lack claws.

Your fahaka is too dumb/young to hunt crayfish yet t seems. Try with some easy foods to hone your puffers hunting ability(aka snails).

perek wrote:Your fahaka is too dumb/young to hunt crayfish yet t seems. Try with some easy foods to hone your puffers hunting ability(aka snails).

Nothing like insulting someone's new fish. I understand he is inexperienced( a better word from dumb) and that this is due to his youth, but the reason why I came to this forum and not to another because I was told these were the experts that knew about puffers, so my question is: Do fahakas eat crayfish and crabs in the wild? If a fahaka, by nature, eats crayfish, then I won't worry about feeding him crayfish. It's what he is supposed to do and any injury that happens will be "normal." But if in the wild fahakas don't eat crayfish, we are putting them into a foreign situation that exposes them to a danger that they are not supposed to face. I have checked around and I cannot find anything about what they eat in the wild. I read what people feed them in captivity but I have not read they eat crabs/crayfish in the wild. Again, thank you for the help. It seems from checking the other forums, this is a question that arises again and again but with no definitive answer. I hope the expertise on this forum will find an answer.

If you consider that these fish come from a river, I would assume anything crawling/swimming around a river, is prime target for food. This would include crays, crabs, bugs & fish. We tend to not feed our puffers in captivity fish, since the ones available to us (usually GF feeders) are kept in extremely poor conditions, causing them to carry diseases. They are also high in fat & can cause liver disease in puffers.

When my 11" fahaka goes after crabs, he bites the big claw 1st. I'm not sure if he does that because he's been pinched enough, or if it's because the crab is waiving it at the puffer in defense

I dint have a fakaha puffer, but i know my puffer is only 3 inches long with the tail, and he likes to eat crayfish the size of him and crams with claws his fin size. I think your puffer will probably mature and learn his prey. Stick to smaller crayfish and crabs at first until he gets the hang of "disarming" them.

My Fahaka did the same thing the first couple of times he ate a crayfish..he got a pincher right in the nose that actuallys stuck there even after the crayfish was dead and eaten! lol. I had to actually take it off of his face for him. He learned quickly though, now he'll swim over the crayfish and attack it from above/behind so that it can't get it's pinchers anywhere near him, yours will learn eventually...

Your puff just has to get use to eating crays/crabs. My figure 8's, GSPs, and Ceylon took a while before they got use to hunting them.