Puffer fish possess powerful teeth resembling beaks that enable them to crack open the shells of mollusks and crustaceans found in their natural food sources, necessitating regular dental checkups for them. As such, their teeth must be clipped periodically.
Pufferfish that don’t get access to hard foods may develop overgrown teeth that require intervention by either a veterinarian or experienced aquarist.
Contents
Feeding
As omnivores, puffer fish require a varied diet of live and frozen foods such as diced or flaked fish, shrimp, clams in their shells and snails. Furthermore, they require an environment with lots of hiding places and bog wood for hiding purposes – smaller puffers should be fed daily while larger species should receive twice weekly feedings of frozen food like Aqueon Tropical Flakes, Color Flakes, Spirulina Flakes Tropical Granules or Algae Rounds to enhance growth or color enhancement.
Pufferfish are ambush predators capable of inflating themselves to appear much larger than they really are, making them unsuitable as companions for other fish species. This is particularly true with smaller figure-8 puffers which may become aggressive and territorial when kept with other types of pufferfish.
Dietary Needs
Mbu puffers are predators in the wild, feeding on shelled food such as clams, snails, mussels, crayfish and muscles. As their teeth constantly develop and require trimming down through diet, shelled or crunchy food is the ideal diet. In captivity they may also be given live or frozen shrimps as well as bloodworms gut-loaded shrimps and diced fish filets as food options.
Puffers may also enjoy feeding unshelled cockles, snails and clams as these have thinner shells for crunching. As a general guideline, puffers should receive shelled or harder food five days a week, as well as soft foods (such as cocktail shrimp and frozen bloodworms soaked in vitamins supplements) two times each week. Because pufferfish tend to produce large amounts of waste when dining on hard foods like shelled foods; therefore a large tank equipped with strong filtration is required; intolerant of poor water conditions so frequent water checks should ensure low ammonia/nitrate levels remain.
Dietary Precautions
Green Spotted Pufferfishes (Dichotomyctere nigroviridis) contain tetrodotoxin, a potent neurotoxin that is deadly if eaten by humans. Fugu is commonly eaten in Japan where this fish is called fugu and should only be prepared by experienced chefs who understand that any miscut can prove deadly.
Due to this reason, captive-bred freshwater puffers should always be purchased instead of those caught in the wild; even then only from reliable pet stores that provide only healthy specimens should they be bought.
Live foods such as snails, blood worms, brine shrimp, blackworms and tubifex worms should be offered regularly to puffer fish to enhance their nutrition and aid digestion. Prior to offering such foods however, they must first be “gut loaded” by soaking in aquarium water for several hours to help retain more vitamins for digestion by the puffer fish more easily. In addition, quarantining should take place prior to being fed directly to them to prevent parasite spread.
Care
Puffer fish can make captivating tank residents, but their high maintenance needs must be considered carefully before adopting one as an aquarium animal. Puffers need clean water quality, an ample aquarium, and an exclusive diet tailored specifically for them. It is best to keep these creatures alone until very young unless kept with other species like anubias or Java fern; otherwise they will eat the substrate! To reduce stress on these delicate animals it’s recommended that a deep sand bed be chosen instead; these fish do not like being kept close while they also accept frozen foods like Repashy gel food, blackworms and even bloodworms from frozen sources – plus they love living creatures such as crabs, crayfish and snails too!
These fish possess powerful, fused teeth that act similarly to rabbit chompers to break open hard shelled molluscs that make up their natural diet. As these teeth continue to develop throughout life, providing regular food sources is necessary to control this growth and keep it from becoming too long and cutting into the fish’s mouth.
