my puffer is not eating

[reba]

Please help me, I recently bought a dwarf puffer. I don't think that he has eaten anything other than a few fins off his tank mates. I have tried frozen bloodworms, freeze dried krill and fish pellets. I have never seen him eat. I bought him almost 2 weeks ago. I think that he may have eaten some of my ghost shrimp, but I can't be sure.

 

[Velvet AciD]

Hmm.. I hear they devour snails like madmen.

A good person to ask is SoulFish, he has puffers. He may know.

 

[tony-da-tiger]

well buy him more ghost shrimp then

 

[madhippoz]

From what I know they need a regular diet of crustaceans of some sort. Snails or ghost shrimp. It wears their teeth down. If they don't have these in their diet, the teeth might outgrow the mouths making it impossible for them to eat, and you'd have to file them yourself somehow. Don't quote me on this, I'm regurgitating Soulfish advice from memory.

 

[mak]

I had an identical situation with a little male dwarf puffer and learned later that he probably had internal parasites. In his case the only thing he would eat was snails and he continued to go down hill until he finally died.
I talked to a couple of puffer experts who recommended always worming new puffers with Discomed. Most Puffers are wild caught and come to us with internal as well as external parasites. The externals are fairly easy to deal with if you have a little salt in your tank but the internals will require treatment. Just follow the directions on the Disco med and then I would add lots of baby snails to your tank once the treatment is removed. Good luck, I hope this helps!
MK

 

[beaver8888]

not to be rude but draf puffers are fresh id try snails,ghost shrimp could have something wrong wit him i dunno

 

[reba]

I put my puffer in his own tank and he has eaten a few bloodworms. I thought that they were veracious eaters, I think he needs more. I had a death in my family and have not been able to devote as much attention to this situation as I would like to. I am still so new to fish keeping, it has only been about 4 months since I discovered this obsession. Hopefuly soon I will get back on track with my fish.

 

[sinasster]

I keep my dwarf puffers with breeding ghost shrimp. Perhaps they eat some of the real small baby shrimp. But I can assure you that they do not eat ghost shrimp.

They do eat LIVE black worms and snails. I have yet to see my puffers eat anything that is not alive.

 

[Davy]

If he is in brackish you might try freshwater. Mine was in FW at my lfs and my tank is also FW. Never had a problem with eating.

 

[420Loach]

feed it live brine shrimp, my puffer was eating the first day i had him when i dumped live brine shrimp into his tank. the little piggy