Do Dwarf Puffers eat ice-cream cone snails?

Bmeasure

Bmeasure

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Aug 6, 2004
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The title gives my basic question here. Ice-cream cone snails are easily multiplied in an aquarium, and are pretty plant friendly. I have heard that their shells are a bit tough for DP's, though. Is there any truth to this? They basically get up to 1/2" spiralled (straight, tapering) shells. Too big? Too tough?
 
mine will not eat them. About 5 months ago i picked up 1 spiral shell from the angel tank at my lfs w/ the bunch of soft shelled snails that i usually collect from their plant display. From that 1 snail ive counted 50+. they are plant friendly although i dont know if they like roots as these seem to spend all day in the substrate and emerge at night.
 
I would guess those are Malaysian Sand Snails. I just got four little puffers to clean up a ten gallon tank that has snails everywhere. Right now I would say the answer is yes. I have read that they are too hard but I would bet they would eat the young .
The ten gallon does seem to have far less snails right now.
The snails themselves if they are sand snails are actually good for the substrate as they burrow and aerate the sand.
I moved a betta out of that tank just Saturday and put the puffers in. I didn't feed them at all until today. They got some blood worms (frozen) today. I just plan on keeping them in that tank by themselves. There is driftwood, a few crytocoryne, java moss and java fern in that tank. They don't seem to be interested in the plants at all, though they do seem to be establishing territories.
FWIW.
 
Dwarf puffers do not rely on breaking the shell to eat snails. They will tip the snail sideways and suck the snail out, leaving the shell completely intact. I've witnessed the attack--they will gang up on larger snails and shred them. My 40 has very few snails brave enough to surface when the lights are on, and I pull out tons of shells when I vacuum the substrate.
 
If puffers don't eat the shells, then why is it (reportedly) so important to give them shelled treats to keep their teeth ground down. I've heard that without snails (or another shelled snack) their teath continue to grow and actually can cause them trouble with eating by growing too large. Is this and urban (or rather aquatic) legend?

Also, how many do you guys believe will work in a 55 gallon with only FFF (flag fish) as tankmates? I have about 8 or 10 FFF currently, and expect them to breed. I don't mind some fry being eaten by the puffers if they are into that, but I don't want the tank to be an aggression problem either. The FFF are pretty quick and kinda territorial themselves, so I believe they may be able to handle themselves. If I want more fry to survive I could always set up a breeding tank!
 
Bmeasure said:
If puffers don't eat the shells, then why is it (reportedly) so important to give them shelled treats to keep their teeth ground down. I've heard that without snails (or another shelled snack) their teath continue to grow and actually can cause them trouble with eating by growing too large. Is this and urban (or rather aquatic) legend?

Also, how many do you guys believe will work in a 55 gallon with only FFF (flag fish) as tankmates? I have about 8 or 10 FFF currently, and expect them to breed. I don't mind some fry being eaten by the puffers if they are into that, but I don't want the tank to be an aggression problem either. The FFF are pretty quick and kinda territorial themselves, so I believe they may be able to handle themselves. If I want more fry to survive I could always set up a breeding tank!
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I do not know too much about those flagfish you are talking about, but puffers are generaly aggressive and are quite renound for fin nipping. Puffers require 1 inch to 3 gallons. Try to only have 1 male to 3 females.
That snails for puffer info is actually quite true, just not for dwarf puffers. I believe that every other puffer (fw, brackish, or marine) require snails to grind their teeth, dwarf puffers do not require this.
 
Bmeasure said:
If puffers don't eat the shells, then why is it (reportedly) so important to give them shelled treats to keep their teeth ground down. I've heard that without snails (or another shelled snack) their teath continue to grow and actually can cause them trouble with eating by growing too large. Is this and urban (or rather aquatic) legend?
Click to expand...

With dwarf puffers its very different, they don't need this requirement as much. In addition, they will eat the whole thing IF the snail is about he size of their eye or smaller.
 
That snails for puffer info is actually quite true, just not for dwarf puffers. I believe that every other puffer (fw, brackish, or marine) require snails to grind their teeth, dwarf puffers do not require this.
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Nono, DPs need it too, just to a lesser extent.
 
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