The Puffer Forum

I have not yet started to breed snails... so I'm planning on giving them pieces of crab leg, with the shell intack... now so I cut the crab into tiny tiny pieces with the shell, or one larger piece with the shell.. I don't want them eating the shell and getting hurt.

thanks3

Momo - where are you located and what species of crab are you considering?

My puffs get Chesapeake Bay blue crab claws and legs (meal size pieces) - but I catch them myself. Blue crabs are sold as either freshly shed soft crabs (a delicacy for us - but doesn't help with puff teeth) or hard crabs - which are too hard for smaller puffs. The crabs in between these two stages are not brought to market - there is no market for them. But if you catch your own, you can select the perfect shell hardness for your puffer. Of course, there are size regs, limits, seasons, licenses, etc.

Don't feed your puffs cooked crab.

Don't feed your puffers CRAP either!
If the puffers are small, they won't be able to bite through the whole leg to get at the meat. If you freeze them (which you should anyway), then you can cut them up into smaller pieces. Keep the shell on, for their teeth. Even if they don't actually bite through the shell, their teeth will graze against the shell, wearing them down.

It's exspesnive crab, besides I only feed crab to dull their teeth i feed other stuff too

You'll know their teeth are scraping against the shell because you'll hear it ! I love the sound of puffer grazing...

I freeze crab pieces and then thaw in Zoe vitamin.

For puffers such as gsp, ceylon, f8, etc, its best if all food is fed with tooth health in mind. Hard foods keep the puffer dentist away....

what about plankton it looks like it has small shell fish in it? and also uncook crab with a shell, the shell seems very soft but i still hear their teeth, as they get larger the shrimp with shell probably won't work eh?

Shell-on shrimp should work and work well with larger puffs - you just buy a larger grade of shrimp.

If the crab is soft-shelled, it's probably a good source of protein but not as good for teeth as snails and shrimp. Soft-shell blue crabs sold in the seafood store are certainly expensive - human delicacies.

I'm not sure what you mean by referring to plankton. Plankton such as rotifers and cladocera are only fed to larval fish. Newly hatched brine shrimp can be fed to many larval fish once their yolk sacs are absorbed, but not for too long, as they are not a complete diet by themselves.

It's ocean plankton fortified in vitamens, they look like tiny shell critters, i mean really tiny shelled critters

I feed freeze-dried plankton & krill to most of my fish.