The Puffer Forum

My snail tank has finally started breeding. Now I do have appropriate size snails for my green spotted. Up until now the snails i have dropped in have been much larger then they should have been and the gsp has just been sucking the meat out of the shell. Now that I have ones the size of his eye I have been dropping them in. The first couple he had tried to break the shell. The last two I dropped in he swallowed whole. It has been two days now and i am not sure if he has passed them. Is this something i should be worried about. I have heard of people massaging the stomachs of puffers that are constipated. Should I be doing this?

I feed my puffers the snails the size of his eyes (not often) and he usually eats them whole in a few chomps. I feed my puffers mussels and clams which are also good for teeth trimming. I messed up my snail breeder tank and they are finally reproducing again. I wouldn't be concerned if it takes them a few bites to eat the whole thing.

He's more concerned about the whole snails the puff swallowed & if they're going to get stuck in him.

That shouldn't be a problem. I have seen mine swallowed a whole cockle. They are built for these kind of things. But my fish is much, much larger.

What kind of snail are you feeding? Common pond? Ranshorn? MTS?

My puffers will refuse MTS. I feed them only Ramshorn. I don't think you should be concerned as a previous poster said they are built to eat small crustaceans

Common pond. Ive heard mts can be to hard for them so I leave them off the menu. Thank you guys as always.

My puffers won't even take a nibble at MTS.

The smaller puffers can break incisors on MTS. Then you face lots of dental work until their normal bit is restored. PITA. I am not as experienced as Pufferpunk, so feel a bit insecure trying to get incisors back to normal.

My DP can pluck the MTS out of their shells.

I have another tank with dps. Ill drop them in there from now on.

My gsp has what appears to be a gap in his bottom tooth/lower beak not sure the correct term. It has been this way since I got him. Is this supposed to be a single plate and if so do I need to do anything to correct this or will it regrow over time?

The fish we label GSPs, SAPs, F-8s, etc have four incisor dental plates each - two upper and two lower. Each of those fused plates is composed of more than one tooth fused into the plate. These are called tetrodontids.

Spinney boxfish and kin have only two incisor plates - one upper and one lower, each composed of multiple teeth fused into each plate. these fish are called diodontids.

The oldest ancestors of our modern puffers were the diodontids, the four-plate form arose from those.