The Puffer Forum

Okay....I know...I ask too many questions..lol...but...I love my Puff and want to get EVERYTHING right.....here goes...

I feed my Puff Shrimp a few times a week. Now in the USA Shrimp are large (what we call Prawns here in the U.K.) so my question is... are these small, English shrimp's shells hard enough to keep Puff's teeth down or should i be giving him Prawns instead, with what I presume is a tougher shell?? I guess U.K. people will understand this question a little better

I get where you are coming from but I'm not too sure on the anaswer. Personally I'm not too sure that freshawtaer shrimps shells are very tough but then I'm not a puffer so I don't know. I'm sure some of the other guys will be able to ask the question

I wouldn'y rely soley on them for keeping teeth in trim.
By far the best option are snails, crabs and cockles in shell.The latter being my prefered dentistry diet.

I seem to struggle to find cockles in their shells. Most of the "seafood" stalls in my area sell them already shelled. I have some winkles, ( I usually take the shell off) which I know are rather large...do you think it would be okay if I cracked the shell with a hammer so Puff can get a taste and then, hopefully work on the rest of the shell himself???

Your LFS should sell them in frozen form and I would truat these over fishmongers stuff. The LFS cockles will have been Gamma irradiated which removes all apthogens so therefore safer for you fish

The majority of lFS sell TMC frozen cockles. Very widely distributed.

whats TMC frozen cockles? i can buy frozen cockles from my lfs but they dont have the shell on.
i too am unable to find fresh cockles in the shell, the only ones i can find are already seasoned

nearly every lfs has tmc foods.


http://www.tmc-ltd.co.uk/aquarium/aquarium-food.asp

My 2 Ceylons will not touch shell on cockles. They would only eat frozen (defrosted) shelled ones. I got 10 live freshwater shrimp the other day from the LFS and they loved them and hunting them more to the point.

I plan on setting up a small 18" tank to be able to hold some stocks of them pretty soon. I reckon on feeding them 2-4 every 3 days or so.

Any thoughts?

This is going to sound like a silly question, but do the puffers eat the shells of th snail and the cockles? I'm assuming "No" lol, but I have yet to find cockles or snails (as all the snails are too big for my lil puffers).

Yeah we call them prawns here too (Australia), I just buy them from the supermarket, rip a small bit off and give it to them, they tear it apart, but yeah the prawn shelling isn't very hard!

How do you feed a puffer crab? Wouldn't the hard spikes on the shell hurt them?

Yes, most of mine eat the shells of snails, even the dwarf puffer. I've not used any cockles so I have no idea about that.

i have a fig 8, about 2.5" long that loves prawns with the shell on

do you think he could tackle a cockle with the shell on ???

i dont have a snail tank up and running, so frozen cockles would be a great option

I've found that with bivalves and snails, if the puffer can get it's beak around it with a small bit of "chomp" distance to add power, it can break it and eat it. However, some of these may be too tough (nerites and MTS have heavy shells that will resist crushing) and certain puffers may be able to eat larger ones, for instance Shakespeare will find a way through the shell of snails half the size of his head, by starting at the thin "baby" shell near the tip, then working the thin inside walls once he has the point off the snail.

You know what I've seen lately? I've recently moved my two gigantic mystery snails into my 55g lightly planted tank as they were eating the plants in my other tank. One of them, the biggest one, plows the sand. I noticed big divots in some places and didn't know what was going on until I actually saw him acting like he was the Plow King after a recent snow!

I love those snails, all the ones my gf and I have are at her house with medium size very smooth gravel, so they have never had the chance. I suppose they do that in mud in the wild to get at valuable nutrients?