The Blue spotted puffer's teeth

Hello all,

So following "Incognito" post on the special need for puffers to have crunchy foods fed to them to keep their teeth in check (thank God you told me) I turn to you for some tips, tricks and advice.

I love the little dude, he feeds straight from my hand like a pup. So far however I have been removing the shell from the piece of shrimp I feed him, clearly a mistake.

if i were to feed him the shrimp with the shell would this be enough to wear down his teeth? I have read several articles saying to feed him snails, what kind of snails? I doubt freshwater snails would be appropriate (have a Betta tank with several pond bladder snails).
Some one posted a comment suggesting to stick the food in a hole in the live rock so the puffer scrapes his teeth to try and get it, anyone tried this?

any tips, advice or personal experience would be greatly appreciated, as I really want to avoid having to clip his teeth myself.

thank you and regards from Switzerland
-jeff-

 

aaaaaand a bump

 

I had a green spotted puffer a couple years ago. When he was young I would feed him chopped table shrimp with a supplemental feeding of baby freshwater snails every few days, and switched over to smaller SW clams and mussels that I bought from my LFS as he got bigger.

The snails were just whatever my LFS happened to have an infestation of at the time (usually ramshorn, but sometimes others - the ramshorn seemed to be especially easy for him to get hold of).

He grew up fat and healthy on shrimp and FW snails, so I don't see that being an issue with your BSP.

 

I guess I should also mention that GSPs begin life in brackish water, so feeding on FW critters may be more suitable for them than a BSP which is strictly marine (right?). By the time I had transitioned my GSP to a full marine environment, he was already weaned off FW snails and eating SW mollusks.

I don't really know, just a thought I had.

 

hmm appreciate the input, what kinda mollusks were you giving him? normal unopened mussels for example?

 

Mussels, SW clams (the kind you you see in refugiums, I don't know their actual name), that sort of thing. Occasionally I would have to split one in half because they were too big for him, but he still liked to bite at the shell. Maybe that was just my fish, I don't know.

My LFS sold them frozen bags.

 

anyone else?