Up next in 10
What do Dwarf Pufferfish Eat?
18K views
Jun 29, 2023
One of the questions I am most frequently asked about my Dwarf Pufferfish is what do they eat? Check out Vibrabites ? https://fishkeepinganswers.com/7sgo ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? FREE copy of my new Neocaridina Shrimp eBook - https://fishkeepinganswers.com/shrimp-ebook/ Links to products used in this video ? API Copper Test Kit - https://amzn.to/3nOZpWX ? Seachem Copper Test Kit - https://amzn.to/3plClzn ? Fluval Stratum - https://fishkeepinganswers.com/a7ub (Amazon.com) ? Hygrophila corymbosa - https://fishkeepinganswers.com/5rp6 (Amazon.com) ? Twisted Vallisneria - https://fishkeepinganswers.com/j5md (Amazon.com) ? Cryptocoryne wendtii - https://fishkeepinganswers.com/12no (Amazon.com) ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Filter intake sponges ? https://fishkeepinganswers.com/tk1i (Amazon)
View Video Transcript
0:00
So one question I probably get asked more than any other when it comes to my dwarf puffers is what the dwarf puffer fish eat
0:06
And in this video I'm going to share with you my complete list of what dwarf puffers like to eat
0:11
Hello friends, welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, my name is Richard and I'm a fish and shrimp keeper based in the UK
0:18
So the first question is what do dwarf puffer fish eat in the wild
0:22
Well dwarf puffers are hardcore carnivores. They want to eat meaty food
0:26
In the wild they would eat live bugs and worms and insect insects
0:29
and things that fell in the water from above, they would eat snails, they would eat really small crustaceans
0:37
mosquito larvae, anything pretty much that they come across, that they can fit in their mouth that is live and meaty, they will eat
0:44
Now, in the aquarium, we can never give them such a varied diet, but it's still important we try and find as many different foods
0:51
to feed our dwarf puffers as possible, to give them a complete range of minerals and vitamins and nutrients
0:57
Now for my own dwarf puffer fish, their primary source of food is Ramshorn snails
1:03
Ramshorn snails, you'll watch the puffer as he sidles up to the unaware snail
1:09
who's normally quite happy going about his business, eating some algae or some uneaten fish food
1:14
Bang. dwarf puffers will bite into the fleshy part of the snail or they will suck the snail out of his shell
1:21
They're not like the larger puffers. They don tend to or certainly when they small they don tend to physically crunch through the shell they tend to either bite the body of the snail or suck it out of its shell completely Now unlike many members of the pufferfish family dwarf pufferfish don tend to suffer with having to have their teeth fold down by constantly eating crunchy foods
1:40
So we don't need to worry so much on that front. Another food my dwarf puffers love to eat is bloodworms. Live or frozen bloodworms is another staple food
1:49
What I'll typically do is take a cube of frozen blood worms. just let it dissolve slightly in the water, let it defrost slightly in the water, let a few blood worms fall out
1:58
and the dwarf puffers quickly hunt them down and bang, they'll hit them
2:02
Whether they're live or dead, the dwarf puffers don't mind, they will quickly take them
2:07
In fact, the water current moving around my tank often gives the impression that the frozen bloodworms are alive
2:12
the way they wriggle through the water as they're moving around, and that really seems to stimulate the dwarf puffers feeding response
2:18
Now I also feed my dwarf puffers live or frozen Daphnear and brine shrimp, and I will also feed them live or frozen mosquito larvae
2:29
Again, they're quite happily sidle up alongside the mosquito larvae as it moves through the water and snipe the take it
2:36
Now, as I say, I tend to use ramshorn snails. I find they are extremely quick to reproduce and I keep a tank, which is my snail farm, that I keep chucking food in
2:45
and they just produce baby after baby after baby, give me an almost endless supply
2:51
But dwarf puffer fish will also eat Malaysian trumpet snails. They eat bladder snails or pond snails They will eat pretty much any small snail that you can reproduce and feed to them Now when it comes to Malaysian trumpet snails one rumor we often hear
3:06
is that Malaysian trumpet snails are so hard they will break a puffer's teeth. I have to
3:11
honest, in my experience, I've never come across that. I've done a fair bit of internet research
3:15
and again, that seems to perhaps be a corner case or a rumor that started and has built momentum
3:21
on the internet. I've never come across anybody who's actually had a problem
3:24
problem feeding their dwarf puffers Malaysian trumpet snaws. So as mentioned at the start, dwarf puffers are hardcore carnivores
3:32
They will not take your flake food. They're unlikely to take any pellet food
3:36
They want live or frozen meaty foods. Now with that said, I have heard many reports of keepers being able to get their
3:44
dwarf puffers onto vibra bites, vibra bites being a pellet food which looks very much in shape and colour like a bloodworm
3:50
And whilst I've not managed to transition mine, mine, I have spoken to others and I have seen countless videos on YouTube of people who
3:59
have managed to get their dwarf puffers to eat vibro bites. So if you have a limited supply
4:04
of snails or find getting live or frozen bloodworms tricky, then vibra bites might be worth
4:09
a try. I'll put a link in the description below in case you want to check them out
4:12
Now I keep my dwarf puffers with a small group of yellow cherry shrimp and I'm often asked
4:18
won't dwarf puffers eat those shrimp? And the truth be told, the large shrimp I've got are a little too
4:23
large for my dwarf puffers and they like ninjas The minute the dwarf puffer comes near they shoot backwards they gone I suspect the dwarf puffers will and do eat baby cherry shrimp When they come across them I think that makes a fabulous food for the puffers
4:36
And if I can keep a small group of adult shrimp alive and they continue to produce babies
4:41
that's like having a never-ending supply of live food for my dwarf puffers
4:46
And the natural next question is, well, how often should I feed my dwarf puffers? Personally, I tend to feed mine two or three times a day, small regular meals
4:54
Now that might mean I drop in a handful of ramtorn snails or it might mean I dissolve some bloodworm or some brine shrimp a couple of times a day
5:03
You'll notice when you keep dwarf puffers that they are constantly on the hunt
5:07
When they eat, their little belly swell up and then within an hour or two, that swelling is gone and there they are again
5:13
looking for more food, scanning around the plants, scanning around the rocks and the bogwood
5:18
Is there anything I can eat? In my experience, it's far better to feed them two or three small meals a day rather than one large
5:24
meal once a day. If you put a mass of bloodworm in at the end of the day and your
5:29
dwarf puffers eat two or three, the rest of that bloodworm is going to sit
5:33
uneaten and may find itself trapped behind rocks or get sucked up into the field where
5:37
it will just rot and spoil your water quality. Now personally I like to keep my dwarf
5:43
puffers in a species-only tank with just themselves and no tank mates. But I do get
5:48
out sometimes, can I keep my dwarf puffers with my better fish? And I answer that
5:52
question in this video here. Thanks for watching
#Fish & Aquaria
#Pets & Animals
#Snack Foods