The Puffer Forum

hey all you puffers long time reader first time poster
I had my puffer over a year now started him out in freashwater he is a gsp and only a half a inch long when i got him
a few months back he started turning black and was stressed so i have brought him into brackish and up to full on salt
and he is doing great just over a month now in a fowlr tank 30gal with a guppy that survied the ride to full on salt
what im looking for is some info on what type of live food source can i start raising in my tank so he has some thing to hunt he loved freashwater snails but i couldnt keep them long enough in the tank to breed
are there and type of salt water snails that breed quick i could add? dropped a pepermint shrimp in there today
and he had more fun watching it that eating it there are a few hermit crabs in there now and same thing
he doesn't seem to be into eating other fish right now i have been feeding him frozen shrimp and clams from my
seafood store but i just want him to have something to do in the tank like hunting
any thoughts ?

never thought of a fish as a pet till I meet this guy

on a side note I found some life saving advice from one of the links here about 8 mos back i was doing a full on tank cleaning and pulled all my fish out and put mr puff in a deep bowl well he decided to jump for it and blew up
turned black and was done for right away i googled what to do and someone posted to gently hold him by the tail head up
and shake him back and forth to BURP him well it worked and saved his life and we had a great bonding moment
well thats me and my fish buddy thanks for reading

Better to breed those snails elsewhere. Even a bucket will do: library/category/feeding/

NEVER tear apart a tank to clean it! You will restart the cycle, crashing the live bacteria in there.
Lots of good info for you to read: library/category/water-filtration/

at the time it was still a fw tank and had some funk going on so it was best to start over at the time
now im past fw in that tank and moved to the fowlr and so far spot on the puffer really likes being in the full salt water
I haven't added any other fish besides the guppy that took the ride with him from fresh to brackish and now salt not sure
what I want to see in there with him that would be the right fish for this size tank {30ga}
i have pond snails in the fw tank with gold fish and he gets some of those 3xs a week thought he would have went for the shrimp i got today but the hermit crabs ate him i thought that was strange
thanks for the links a lot of great info here and a lot of puffer fans
puff on

30g is the bare minimum for this species. If you want to add tank mates, I'd upgrade to a 55g. Don't expect that guppy to last forever with him, unless he's a rare gentle puffer.

Welcome!

Hello and Welcome.

Welcome to the forum

hey thanks for the welcomes and glad to be here
yes pufferpunk im aware of the tank size this was a unplanned hobby in what started as a fw tank for the kids has
turned into a whole other step at some point upgrading the tank will happen until than we just got to let it ride
just added some more live rock and a few more hermit crabs to which munched on the guppy rip little yellow dude
i think it was the salt water that burned him out than the crabs cleaned up the mess
mr puff enjoyed his first lobster dinner which was fun to watch as he dug his way right into the raw lobster claw
and again the crabs were right there to clean things up
side note a little baby white star fish was found hitchhicking on the live rock and im hoping a few more will start popping up fun to watch and something else mr puff can grind his teeth on
puff on puffers and keep the sea clean

Just keep him alone then.