The Puffer Forum

hello i am now the proud owner of toad a 3inch mbu this is my second puffer i also have spud a gsp which is a great little guy as well as koi, lobster and tropical fish

i have 2 questions

1) how often and how many times in a day should i feed my mbu i currently feed spud every other day but i assume as the mbu is a bigger fish this feeding schedule would not be enough. i have a snail tank and cockles/mussles and buy in fresh river shrimp.

2) i have read that adding a cuttle bone is good for keeping a puffers teeth trim has anyone else heard of this, i would like advise before adding this as i have found with koi keeping that you read one bit of advise which is pro a treatment and in the next book it says what ever you do don't do that,

spud wrote:hello i am now the proud owner of toad a 3inch mbu this is my second puffer i also have spud a gsp which is a great little guy as well as koi, lobster and tropical fish

i have 2 questions

1) how often and how many times in a day should i feed my mbu i currently feed spud every other day but i assume as the mbu is a bigger fish this feeding schedule would not be enough. i have a snail tank and cockles/mussles and buy in fresh river shrimp.

2) i have read that adding a cuttle bone is good for keeping a puffers teeth trim has anyone else heard of this, i would like advise before adding this as i have found with koi keeping that you read one bit of advise which is pro a treatment and in the next book it says what ever you do don't do that,

Never heard of cuttlebone for teeth, its good for snails though. Every other day should be more than enough.

I'm jealous. I'd love to have a tank big enough to get a mbu.

Boxermom wrote:I'm jealous. I'd love to have a tank big enough to get a mbu.

every time that I see people aspire to own an mbu it makes my fahaka dream seem OK....

A 3-inch mbu is a baby, I would feed the fish six days a week.

Once the fish gets to 10-12 inches you can move to alternate day feeding, beyond 18 inches or so you can go to every third or fouth day, mine preferred more frequent but smaller mealsm so stayed at 2-3 day feedings. I do hope that you already have a very large tank.

Puffers do not chew cuttlebone IME.

Be sure to read RTR's tale of his Mbu, stickied in this forum.

thanks for your replies,
my plan is to get a larger tank once he grows another couple of inches, the tank he is in at the moment will not be big enough for him to fully grow up in, but for now he is really small but have no fear i will be moving him way before he is restricted in moving.

only had him for 4 days but he is all ready part of the family.

spud wrote:but for now he is really small but have no fear i will be moving him way before he is restricted in moving.

...The image of a fish bulging out of it's tank comes to mind... :34:

spud wrote:the tank he is in at the moment will not be big enough for him to fully grow up in, but for now he is really small but have no fear i will be moving him way before he is restricted in moving.

Just a note, stunting occurs far before the fish is actually physically prevented from turning/moving.

note taken, and understood

Cool. I'm not riding you, I'm sure you care about your fish, that's why you're here!