The Puffer Forum

I'm worried about my puffer's teeth and I'm having a hard time finding snails at the local pet shops.

Last night i was grocery shopping and i noticed lots of different shells for sale. Some were actually really small! Some of them didn't look alive, but some of the bigger ones (like an inch or so) were clearly moving in their saran wrapped trays.

Is it safe to feed F8's shells from the supermarket? If so, what measures should i take to avoid contamination? I'm also worried that if they're too hard, my poor little puffer might break his teeth

Thank you!!

What do you mean by shells?

Ok, so i pretty much gave up on the "shells" mainly because i couldn't figure out what they're called in English.

I picked up some brackish snails (black shell, forget the name but it had something to do with "stones" or "rock"...) who i'm hoping to breed, as well as some marine hermit crabs. The guy at this pet shop actually knew his stuff! I was happily amazed. He mentioned that puffers like to bite coral, and that's a good way to keep their beaks trim, and also the hermit crab's shells are also good for beak trimming.

Only thing is that my F8 was meant to eat the hermit crabs, but so far he's leaving them alone (as far as i could tell). He was definitely interested in them, but they spend most of their time hiding from the puffer, so either he can't find them, or he doesn't like hermit crab.

On the plus side, these hermits are eating the leftover food that falls to the bottom of the tank thus cleaning after the puffer! Awesome!

Yes, shellfish from the grocery store is fine to feed them. I believe its recommended to freeze them first, though, and make sure there's no chlorine type smell. Otherwise, go for it. Many of us use human shellfish to feed.

whats the best food to feed a f8 to keep his teeth and beak down?

thanks

There's a great food article, with pictures, in the library.

Hermit crabs are saltwater creatures. What specific gravity is your F8 at?

My aquarium varies around 1.010.
Bear in mind that the hermits were originally meant to be eaten by the puffer pretty much immediately, so i never anticipated them around more than a day or two...

They were in a marine aquarium with a GSP in the pet shop, but i was told that they'd be fine long enough to be eaten... Now they spend most of their time hiding from my F8 who is on constant food patrol, and eating coral. My tank is filled with a coral substrate, and there's a big piece of coral in the middle of my tank that one of the hermits has claimed despite my F8 constantly nibbling on it.

If he doesn't eat the hermits soon, i'm thinking about putting them in a separate tank with full marine...

i like the idea of my F8 trimming his own teeth on coral --

i currently have no coral in my tank (substrate or otherwise) - would adding some in mess with my PH in a bad way -- ?

currently its at 8.0

I feed my F8 (actually running it at 1.004 with a betta in an isolation/breeding net) physid and ramshorn snails as well as dried gammarus (and bloodworms although this topic is about keeping teeth down)...

if that helps..

Although a full grown F8 may have a chance?, in general I wouldnt try to have a F8 eat hermit crabs.

-Pete

The argument towards eating the hermits wasn't so much for the crabs themselves, but apparently the F8's like to chew on the shells even after the crab has been eaten or has vacated. The shells are apparently good for the teeth, but it doesn't matter since the F8 simply isn't interested in them.

The snails however, despite being a bit too large for the F8 to eat(i want them to breed a bit in the tank), have definitely piqued his interest. I'm already seeing bite marks and holes in the snails' shells where my F8 has been taking samples, and i often find snails on their backs from the F8 having knocked them off the glass or coral.

Either way, it seems that the best thing that went into the tank was the coral itself, seeing as the F8 just loves nibbling on it

OK, well the mystery of the hermit crabs is finally solved!(sort of)

I was away for a couple of days and upon my return, i noticed that my F8 had eaten one of the hermits! (surprisingly, it was the better hidden one, but it was also on the coral, so i guess the puffer knew about it all along!

Well, it's sad, but I'm also relieved that he finally ate one of them. I wonder if he didn't eat them before because I'd been feeding him daily... Miss a day and he eats the neighbours!