Puffer Diet

[boozzbro]

What do you all feed a porcupine puffer.
Mine will only seem to eat bloodworms and brine shrimp. He once ate a piece of crab but other than tha one time he wont eat anything except bloodworms and brine shrimp
ive tried the soaking teh food in garlic idea too so any other ideas besides that would be great.

 

[unleashed]

blood worms and brine shrimp wont sustain him for long.you should be feeding your porc a varied diet of krill,squid,scallops,shrimp,silverslides,mysis,plankton.he may even go for pellets .i reccomend thera+A pellets by spectrum to be fed in the am.even my shark and ray eat these. then frozen(above) variety soaked in selcon and garlic extreme

 

[boozzbro]

you mean scalops like you can buy in the supermarket?
Where would you get frozen squid?
ive tried shrimp and he wont touch them.

 

[brucewrs]

I feed mine silversides.He jumps out of the water for them.I got him trained to jump out of the water and take them from my hand.Just watch out for your fingers..LOL

 

[v-lioness]

Where would you get frozen squid?
You can get frozen squid from the local grocery store.
Kaye

 

[chesley587]

I feed my puffer mussel for puffer fish he loves them.

 

[leftyblite]

I feed mine Brine shrimp, silversides, and clams. He is so-so about the clams and shrimp but goes crazy when he sees the silversides. :thinking:

 

[boozzbro]

i put a clam in before i fed them anything else the other night and he absolutely dominated it. Now he'll eat the clams so long as he doesnt fill up on either the brine shrimp or blood worms.
He will also eat kril i found too but i need to leave it in the vegetable clip. If i just drop it in and it floats on top he wont touch it.
I think the next time I go to get some ghost shrimp I'll try and get him some silversides too and see what he does with them.
thanks for al your help.

 

[unleashed]

sorry for the delayed responce but as for squd scallops shrimp ect i purchase all of mine from a locat grogery store be sure to soak these foods in fw to thaw then rinse well this will illiminate any bacteria or paresites such as tape worms ect from the meat that could be passed on to your fish(no the freezing process does not always kill these things but the fw will)alway feed raw foods

 

[lpuzon]

how do u feed your puffers? i mean, they're slow eaters and before they could get their food, other fishes have snatched it already. it's kinda my problem...

 

[boozzbro]

mine tears through everythign pretty quick. I leave the clam in the vegetable clip and he takes bites of it when he wants. The only fish that competes with him is a racoon butterfly fish and picks at teh food as well so it works out pretty well.
Sometimes i only thaw like half of the cube or food and let him bite at it while its floating. Then the other fish eat the thawed food while he gets teh semi frozen.

 

[lpuzon]

i went to my lfs today and told me that silversides will spike up my nitrates. and bloodworms are only for freshwater fish. is it true?

 

[lpuzon]

bump

 

[boozzbro]

bloodworm are fed to freswater fish but saltwater fish eat them too. They shouldnt be a primary staple of the diet though. As for the silversides i havent fed them to the fish yet but i think it may be the leftover dead parts that would cause the nitrates to spike. If you feeding a puffer they are messy and will leave excess on the bottom of the tank. You just need to do your regular weekly/ biweekly water changes and you should be fine.

 

[lpuzon]

ic, thanks for the info. btw, i bought silversides today, ttried it on myh puffer, and wont eat it. even tried clams and doesn't like it too. they're kind of picky, aren't they? what he only likes to eat is the krill and shrimp (though i really think they're just the same thing), nothing else! :happyfish