F8 Puffers and snails

[Johny]

When puffer fish (Figure 8 to be exact) eat snails, such as pond snails, do they (or should they) actually crush and eat the shell? Or is it just good enough to chew on the shell a bit while they suck the snail out of his shell?

We just got some F8 puffers a couple days ago and fed them snails last night for the first time. We noticed they when they found one, they would take the whole thing into their mouths, spin the shell around in their mouths until they found the opening, then sucked the snail right out. None of them ever crushed the shell of a single snail. The snails we fed them were just about perfect bite size to fit into their mouth.

As a side note: it was actually kind of fun raiding Petco's tanks for pond snails. We asked if we could have some and the guy handed me a bag and said that I could stay all night till closing picking snails out of their tanks to my hearts desire. We brought home a ton of them and tossed the ones we didn't feed into another tank.

 

[Terrance]

If your F8 is still young, then it will get a little bit more aggressive as an adult. Then it will eat the whole snail. If your puff is already an adult, then I think your puff will eventually eat the whole snail.

 

[Johny]

Yeah they are still young. Well at least they are not full grown. They definitely know how to hunt then and really liked eating them. I guess I just expected them to chomp right through the shell or something. Not too worried about them though. From what we have read, the F8's are not one of the more problematic ones as far as keeping their teeth proper length, and we have a good supply of snails (Local Petco). We fed them a bit of raw shrimp in the shell today. They loved that too.