The Puffer Forum

He's not interested in the snails, and I can't source any clams with shells locally; he's currently eating tiger prawns (shell on, chopped into Piggy sized pieces and kept frozen) and earthworms fresh from the garden, which he is very enthusiastic about, but obviously aren't going to keep his teeth down.

Any ideas? He's a juvenile Hairy, about 2.5"-3" long now.

I don't believe the Lurkers to have teeth problems. Mostly, my Congo eats earthworms & shrimp.

That's good to hear, he'd live on earthworms, given the choice. It's like watching a fat old Italian suck up spaghetti

But it is still a good idea to have more than just one primary food item. The greater the variety of foods in the diet, the better the chance at good nutrition into the puffer. What one lacks, another may well compensate.

Any suggestions for additional food sources? I can get hold of mussels, but I seem to remember that they're not particularly good for them. Clams still seem to be avoiding me, but I can get mixed frozen seafood, crabstix, that sort of thing. Black worms don't seem to be sold over here. He enjoys the odd woodlouse, but they have a tendency to float around on the surface, and get sucked into the internal filter.

It takes time & patience to get a lurker to eat dead foods.
Follow these instructions: library/feeding/problems-feeding-your-puffer/

Ah, he happily eats dead things, he will try to eat pretty much anything, with the exception of his snail tank mates - you were right, he's ignoring them.

It's more of a variety problem tbh, there's not a huge choice where I live out in the sticks.

The produce dept of your grocery store?

Just nipped out to get some Aquasafe.

LFS had FW crabs in, so I bought 6, and chucked one in with Piggy. Bingo, fresh crab supper, what more could a little puffer's heart desire?

He's ignoring it. He had prawn for tea instead.