feeding snails to puffers

[willowthepoet]

I don't want guppies anymore, after my third time losing the entire tank, so i was thinking dwarf puffers, but i don't know how to go about getting snails for them to eat.

help?

 

[nitrous]

well my figure eight puffers didnt always eat snails they loved blood worms but idk how close those 2 puffers are

 

[TankGirl]

Dwarf puffers do need snails. What most people do is to get a colony of pest pond snails like you often see in planted tanks. Once you have a few going in a small tank after a few weeks you will begin to see the population increase. It might be good to get the snails going before you get the puffers. You can sometimes get yourself started by going to the LFS and seeing if they will give you the pest snails out of their plant display tanks, which they often do for free.

More importantly, if you have lost several tanks of guppies I would try to get to the bottom of that before trying puffers. Guppies are extremely hardy fish, so the reason for your difficulty there needs to be resolved.

 

[willowthepoet]

I lost the guppies because the females always died after/while having their babies and the babies got eaten by the males (which was fine as i wasn't trying to breed), and every time i replaced one, a couple days later there was fungus or some other problem that killed a bunch before I could catch it and treat it.

the only one that's survived was one male that i had since i set up the tank about 6 months ago, and he randomly died 2 days ago.

I have one female now, who is about ready to drop, but with the current record, she'll be gone within a week too, most likely.

When she's gone, I'm planning on taking the whole tank down and cleaning it out completely, then starting fresh, planted with some dwarf puffers and the one amazing ramshorn snail that has been alive in various tanks for almost a year now.

 

[TankGirl]

Sounds good. They really like plants, as they provide areas for them to use as territory, and areas to hide.

When I tried to keep a large snail in with my DPs they were constantly attacking the poor thing, taking chunks out of it's foot, etc. until I finally removed it. Hopefully it will work out in your tank, especially if you have plenty of baby snails to feed them.

 

[willowthepoet]

Hmm... ok, thanks. I'll keep an eye on it and if it starts to look like the snail's in trouble, I'll put it in another tank. No biggie.


Since they're really small, is there any precaution I should take with the filter? (covering the intake, etc)

 

[TankGirl]

Nope - that will not be necessary if it was not for your previous fish. One of the biggest challenges with DPs is getting them to eat when you bring them home. For me, the only thing that sparked their appetite was live adult brine shrimp. After that, I was able to feed frozen bloodworms and live blackworms with no trouble.

 

[czcz]

TG - Do you think the small sp. of ramshorns could be used instead of pond snails? If I feed a lot of soft shelled snails, do you think the majority of harder shelled nerites could survive in a dwarf puffer tank?

Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

 

[TankGirl]

IME snails do not fare well in a DP tank, even MTS. For the hard-shelled snails like that they simply snatch the animal right out of the shell and the bottom of the tank is littered with empty shells.

I thought I'd keep MTS to burrow in the sand and keep it aerated, and because they are mainly nocturnal I believed they would be out while the DPs slept and avoid being lunch for the puffers, but this was not the case. They completely rid the tank of snails in a couple of weeks.

I used nerites as food for my DPs, since mine were spawning in another tank and becoming a nuisance. Ramshorns work fine, too.

 

[Feeding_Frenzy]

just dont feed malaysian trumpet snails the shells are too hard and might actually damage the puffers teeth

 

[Japola44]

My 2 puffers havent bothered my black mystery snail at all. They a;so will happily gobble up frozen blood worms. I also had trouble getting them to eat when i took them home so i didnt feed them for 2 days and all the sudden blood worms sounded real good. GL with the puffers.