Best foods for Amazon puffers

[Fat Homer]

I would start breeding pest snails or ramshorn snails on the side...

Certain puffers can also be trained to eat pellets but may take time... SAP’s should accept them but would still try and focus on getting them a mainly crunchy diet...

 

[twentyleagues]

Yup start trying pellets once you get them eating regularly. Snails snails and more snails. Maybe cherry shrimp? Not sure if they qualify as crunchy enough or not. I haven't done saps as I'm to afraid of the teeth thing. The tad pole shrimp thing might be a good idea, I believe they are also called triops.
5 minutes later.......
Yup triops.

 

[Deadeye]

Hmm, I’ve never thought of Triops, I could never keep them alive from the science kits.
I already have a snail breeding tank, so it seems like I’m on the right track!

 

[twentyleagues]

Hmm, I’ve never thought of Triops, I could never keep them alive from the science kits.
I already have a snail breeding tank, so it seems like I’m on the right track!

Feed alot and they'll reproduce faster. More food means more cleaning though. Also keep calcium high (you probably know that), I like to use cuttle bone they graze on it when needed.

 

[PYRU]

They eat mostly insects in the wild. Pond snails or ramshorn will be good. Bad news though snails won't keep teeth trimming at bay. You need to try your best to get them to eat a hard pellet like nls or try smearing repashy on a rock they can pick at.

 

[Deadeye]

They eat mostly insects in the wild. Pond snails or ramshorn will be good. Bad news though snails won't keep teeth trimming at bay. You need to try your best to get them to eat a hard pellet like nls or try smearing repashy on a rock they can pick at.

What type of repashy?

 

[Andyroo]

so long as you're breeding your own food :
what about setting a white-worm (or similar) culture & setting/seeding a cuttlebone from that culture?
Then suction-cup to the glass & let the puffers grind them out?
Might be fun. Might be a nightmarishly messy headache

 

[Deadeye]

Sadly I don’t think I’ll be getting the go ahead on breeding worms
Maybe I can get repashys and soak a cuttle bone in that though?

 

[fishguy1978]

I just saw a post about feeding Repashy Grub Pie mixed with crushed oyster shell. Chicken keepers typically feed the crushed oyster shell to their chickens for the calcium. The shell would help to wear down the SAP's beak.

 

[Andyroo]

Repashy - I thought it'd be a culinary term for a paste or sauce, but it's a company - that's kinda' great, I'm sick&tired of everything being home-made.

Yes, put the cuttlebone into the hot mix, let it cool then carve it out of the gel block.

I'd be interested to see how long the gelatine/agar/carrageenan stays "good" submerged at 85C, so maybe contact them and ask about this application. I expect they'll tell you to reduce the water content. They may also just make it for you, adding it to their product offering as I expect i'd be great for turtles also.

All things considered, cuttlebone might not be hard enough; next step might be to try same with pumice

Note: white worms are a tiny little water-tolerant thing that's grown in little Tupperwares with little/no smell (unless it fails & rots) - your access filters might not even notice. Alt, live culture of tubifex or similar.