The Puffer Forum

I've read the care guide on this website and seen the list of foods they can eat. I'd prefer not to keep live food and to be able to freeze it and then feed it to them. What could I do this with and how? It says something about defrosting it in water and adding vitamins. Can anyone elaborate? Help would be much appreciated!

I feed mine calamari, clams on a half shell, bloodworms (a treat), and fresh live snails.
Foods like these are OK, and there are many more acceptable alternatives. I defrost in a small shot glass with tank water in it, dont feed your puffer frozen food! I made this mistake before and the poor guy chipped a tooth! (probably also not good for their bodies to receive a sudden jolt of freezing..)

Vitamins are optional, but arent expensive and can be found for fish under the name vitachem I believe.

So could I get away with not feeding them snails?

Absolutely! I haven't fed mine snails for months, as I have too many tanks to care for already.
Clams on a half shell, frozen snails, small pieces of various shellfish all work fine.

So you just buy a bunch of clams on a half shell (and freeze them, I'm guessing?) and that should suffice for most of their diet? How much do you feed them a day (I'm planning on starting with 3 F8's)?

Also could you tell me how often you find yourself having to clip their beaks? Can't find much specific info on that online so it would be great to hear from someone who owns them!

The ones I buy come frozen and already soaked in vitamins (hikari is the brand name I believe, but store bought clams are just as acceptable..) You should feed enough for all the puffers to have slightly larger then pre-meal bellies about once a day to once every 2-3 days depending on the puffers size (larger fish = slower metabolism), but if they look like fat little balloons, you fed them too much!. Smaller clams are better, you need something they have to bite the shell to get the meat off of, if its too big they'll just rip the meat off the shell and be on their merry way =P. I also give my f8 a pea with the skin removed once a week, and an occaisonal peice of watermelon.
I have never had to clip my f8 teeth, as the clam shells and snails wear it down over time.

+1 to the above comments. Additionally you want a varied diet. It would be better to have multiple frozen foods to cycle through. Always vitamin dose any foods you are feeding them

If I'm making shrimp for dinner, I also like to give mine the Shrimp tails. Raw, mind you...They'll work hard to get the meat out.