Dwarf Puffer vs MTS?

[CaptnIgnit]

so I am planning out a dwarf puffer tank and I already have a growing MTS population. I know that MTS have a harder shell and I'm curious if dwarf puffers have any trouble eating them? Should I go for pond snails as opposed to the MTS when feeding them the occasional snail?

[JohnPaul]

My experience with dwarf puffers and MTS is, assuming the MTS are of any significant size at all, the puffers simply suck them right out of their shell. So there's no crunching of the shell involved. They may crunch the tiny little ones, I'm not sure.

[src]

I've seen reports that MTS shells are too tough for dwarf puffers, and the puffer might break it's jaw trying to eat them. Of course, a smart puffer will just go for the foot, but how smart can a 1" fish be?

[Purrbox]

According to my research Dwarf Puffers don't need snails to keep their teeth filed down like most other Puffers. In fact they generally just suck the snail out of the shell like JohnPaul mentioned. Apparently it can be quite amusing watching them bury their nose in the shell and shake vigorously like a dog with a toy.

[GlitcH]

I've got some dwarf puffers and IME they neither crunch snails (except for the very smallest snails. But I've seen guppies eat very small snails too.) nor do they suck any snails out of the shell. I watch mine alot and what they do is, once they see the snail they will position themselves right in front of it and then quickly come in and take a big bite. The snail recoils into it's shell and in most cases it then dies. The puffer very rarely will bother with the snail after the first bite.

MTS spend most of there time out of sight so unless you have a large school of puffers I wouldn't worry about them eating enough to stop the growth of your MTS population.

[CaptnIgnit]

I'll only have 2 (1m/1f) or 3 (1m/2f). What about keeping Red Cherry Shrimp with them? I've heard a lot of mixed stories. I plan to have a fair amount of plants and sight breaks in the tank so they should have plenty of room to hide. Anyone care to share any experiences?

[GlitcH]

My Red Cherry Shrimp population is exploding..........the puffers don't bother with them at all.

[JohnPaul]

I've never had Red Cherrys in with my puffers, but I almost always have ghost shrimp in with them and never had a problem, not even with the smallest of the ghost shrimps.

[coldmachineUK]

Just curious if snails don't get eaten and shrimp are ignored, how do you guys keep the beak filed?

I've found that my Figure-8 does like snails, but he's pretty lazy when it comes to them. They have to be crawling right in front of him to get his attention, and they usually get ragged around and flung the other side of the tank lol.

I wouldn't recommend MTS though tbh. Better safe than sorry: stick with common pond or ramshorn.

[JohnPaul]

Like Purrbox said, dwarf puffers are the only puffers (that I know of, at least) that actually don't need to keep their teeth (beak) filed down. So unlike other puffers, snails in the diet are nice but not necessary. I've gone through stretches with mine when I couldn't keep my snail population up, and they've existed on bloodworms for months at a time with no ill effects.