Fahaka puffer

EPGeiger310

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 22, 2018
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Bristol, Connecticut
So I’ve had my fahaka come late December/early January, and decided to show him off on here and ask a few questions. He’s currently in a 125 gal with 4 gold barbs. He leaves them alone for the most part, unless it’s feeding time then he’s pretty aggressive. My main question that I wanted to ask was how did you guys get yours to eat specific foods? His diet currently consists of a guy loaded fiddler crab every other day, snails and bloodworms. He won’t touch or go after anything else...maybe shrimp pellets every now and again but even those he doesn’t eat right away. I tried the frozen krill/shrimp and he pretty much rips it to shreds as if it was alive and spits it out all over the tank. I’ve dropped clams on the half but he shows no interest. Any tips?

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Fat Homer

Mmmmm... Doughnuts
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Mar 16, 2009
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I’ve found feeding your puffer with a tool such as planted tank tweezers or something similar helps, coz they learn to associate whats at the end of said tool for food...

My old girl just had to see my tweezers come out for her to get excited coz she knew food would be coming...

This way, even foods she never tried before she would at least nibble at coz she knew whatever i was holding was meant to be for her to eat...
 

TheReefer

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Apr 13, 2019
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I have found that tying food to a string and using that to move it gets their attention, I did that with clams, frozen shrimp (shell on), frozen crayfish, and other foods. I also think soaking food in garlic may help.
 

Fat Homer

Mmmmm... Doughnuts
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Mar 16, 2009
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String method also works well by tricking the puffer into thinking there is live food, i just prefer the tweezers coz its just pick it up and dunk into the tank...
 
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thanos_FP

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 21, 2019
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it's all luck of the draw... mine loves hakiri carnivoire pellets probably even more than live food. i didn't even have to "train" it. then i tried veggie wafers spitting but it kept spitting them out. so i skipped a feeding day, the next day i threw them in and now he takes them just like the carnivore ones. they're quite crunchy too so that def helps with teeth trimming. anyway yeah, try skipping a meal and offer what you want it to take and it'll most likely take it. good luck!
 
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