live food

S

susiejames101

sue
Nov 14, 2004
39
0
0
uk
Hi
We have been told that our puffer will like live food occaisionally, but have also been told that live food can cause problems too!!
I have seen live bloodworms in our local shop ( how long can i keep them live for ???) and they have said we can have snails anytime too, has anyone tried keeping or breeding their own live food, it seems a bit weird to keep a small tank to keep live food in but just wondered what other people do? :dance
 
heard of "SEA MONKEYS"? They're basically little brine shrimp which you can buy a setup for less than $10 some places. pour in the water and conditioner, stir it up, pour in the eggs and in a few days youll see the little guys swimming around. they multiply plenty after about 2 weeks. i feed these to my betta.
live foods have been known to carry parasites or other diseases which can kill or harm your fish, which is why i dont buy them, i breed my own from dried brine shrimp eggs. also the one's bought from stores are in overstocked aquariums and die pretty quickly if you try to put them in separate breeding tanks (in my experience, maybe others have better luck)
I'm not saying you should get brine shrimp to feed to your puffer, but keep in mind the risks you're taking feeding your guy live foods, or trying to breed them
 
depends on your fish. my betta loves them, he'll jump up and eat them in midair. but the things are pretty small, and don't have much nutritional value (just protein), so use them as a treat for smaller carnivores.
 
Brine shrimp are an excellent live food. If you have an aquarium society in your area to join, you can find plenty of cultures for other great parasite-free foods like microworms, daphnia and fruit flies. I shy clear of the live blackworms and bloodworms sold at shops and stick to the frozen instead. Your puffer should devour these with great relish. You may also want to start up a jar or small tank to raise snails in. You can get little pond snails for free at most places and they will help your puff's beak stay trimmed.
 
Dapple2 said:
Brine shrimp are an excellent live food. If you have an aquarium society in your area to join, you can find plenty of cultures for other great parasite-free foods like microworms, daphnia and fruit flies. I shy clear of the live blackworms and bloodworms sold at shops and stick to the frozen instead. Your puffer should devour these with great relish. You may also want to start up a jar or small tank to raise snails in. You can get little pond snails for free at most places and they will help your puff's beak stay trimmed.
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As I said before, susiejames and i are concerned about the same tank. According to a book I have on freshwater/brackish puffers, potato puffers dont eat snails. And yes, our puffer IS a potato puff.
 
Spud2564 said:
As I said before, susiejames and i are concerned about the same tank. According to a book I have on freshwater/brackish puffers, potato puffers dont eat snails. And yes, our puffer IS a potato puff.
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Erm, I have not read whatever posts you are referring to, and the original post to this topic did not state what kind of puffer this was. I had to do a rather extensive search on google to determine just what kind of puffer this was since that is not a comonly used name. It seems that you are actually referrring to the Congo puffer (Tetraodon miurus), which get about seven inches and will happily crunch snails, fish and anything else they can get in their mouths....
 
Dont feed your puffers fish, most puffers are molluscavorious and will eat snails. Feeding your puffers fish can result in problems, namely from the high level of fatty acids that most feeders have. Feeding them fish also leads to liver disorders. Brine shrimp are good for fish, but you shouldnt make them a fishes staple. Generally brine shrimp arent high in nutritional value, only the babies (that still have their yolk sac attached) are any good. Ghost shrimp, small crabs (clawless freshwater, generally), snails, and brine shrimp are all good for keeping your puffers beak down. For nutrition you should try snails, bloodworms, or shrimp tail. If you're gonna feed them ghost shrimp you should gut load the shrimp so your puffer gets the most out of its food.

i have a 2gal tank that i breed snails in, just place a few pond snails in the tank and drop a few algae waffers or a piece of lettuce. The snails will reproduce quicky and you should see small snails quickly (no need for sexing, all snails are hermaphrodites)
 
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If the puffer they have is the puffer I think it is, they actually do eat fish. Tetraodon miurus, the Congo puffer, like to bury themselves in the sand and lunge out at fish that swim by. Gulp! Their natural diet is mostly fish and crustaceans.

You can see a really cool picture of one hiding in the sand if you do a google image search, but the link comes up broken when you click on it. Just search for Tetraodon miurus and it will be on the first page. It's insanely cute. (In that only a fish fanatic could love it kinda way...)
 
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