American signal crayfish as food

[Achilles1763]

Hello, well I have been looking for a long time for cost effective ways of feeding my fahaka and other predators... As its getting expensive! There is a UK company called Kiezebrink that sell the American signal crayfish frozen as fish food. Now I love he idea as another food type for my fahaka but I was wondering if anyone has actually done this?

 

[Achilles1763]

Right okay so I will let you know how they are as some UK puffer owners may wish to give it ago. So below is the individual crayfish... A few are missing claws etc but when it's £10 for 40 or so I can't really complain. The next issue is getting my fahaka to eat them, the major issue is that they float! Not what he is used to with crabs etc... Any ideas how I could trigger his prey reflex? As most know he is in a large comm tank and isn't the dominant fish so he isn't the first to feed. Plan at the mommet to to wait till he is proper hungry and try and hand feed him.. I have done his before with muscles so fingers crossed he takes them..

 

[Achilles1763]

This is the crayfish about 3 inches which is about the size the live ones are she normally gets.

 

[tlindsey]

Right okay so I will let you know how they are as some UK puffer owners may wish to give it ago. So below is the individual crayfish... A few are missing claws etc but when it's £10 for 40 or so I can't really complain. The next issue is getting my fahaka to eat them, the major issue is that they float! Not what he is used to with crabs etc... Any ideas how I could trigger his prey reflex? As most know he is in a large comm tank and isn't the dominant fish so he isn't the first to feed. Plan at the mommet to to wait till he is proper hungry and try and hand feed him.. I have done his before with muscles so fingers crossed he takes them..

Fat Homer

 

[Achilles1763]

Yeah I'm hoping he will chime in, at the moment she is still just waking up. She is at her most active in the evening so will try and tempt her then.

 

[Fat Homer]

Fat Homer

Hahahaha... sorry missed this post...

Obviously i've never tried this company being that it is from the UK, but considering they are just Frozen Crayfish, i don't see why it would be a problem feeding them to your fahaka as long as it was properly defrosted before feeding...

As for how to trigger the feeding response, first off, i wouldn't recommend holding it with your fingers, since you don't want your puffer associating FINGERS with FOOD, so maybe get like a wooden skewer, or some form of long planting tweezers to avoid your fingers accidentally getting bit... also helps with teaching your puffer whatever is at the end of the stick / tweezers is food...

Onto the floating cray problem, i'm guessing there could be air stuck inside the shell of the cray fish, so maybe try poking a few holes through its shell and see if maybe it will help release any trapped air, and maybe the cray will sink on its own, then as you said, if your puffer is hungry enough, she should go for it

 

[Achilles1763]

Sorry for delay in responding, but thanks for that I will get on it. I never used to have this problem with my hairy puffer, but in a species tank it a little different. I guess it's just another 'fun' task to resolve of you want a fahaka in a comm tank! Lol

 

[Hendre]

I have to hand feed Bloodworm and earthworm for my african knives to get past the pink tail. Something tells me you dont wanna do that with puffers lol?

 

[Achilles1763]

I have hand fed my fahaka many times.. She is surprisingly delicate! It's just that she doesn't see the crayfish as food yet.

 

[Achilles1763]

Success! She is finally taking full frozen (thawed) signal crayfish from the surface. I started with just the tails.. which I ripped from the body (gross!!).. she then started fighting with the oscar over them. After a few weeks of this I put in a whole one which she has just chewed up and eaten. Very happy as I can get them dirt cheap and it's great for her teeth.