Feeding Puffers and Triggers???

[IDESONE]

how often and how much should i be feeding my porcupine puffer and my niger trigger. this is my 1st fowlr with predators and i was wanting get some input from you guys/gals to make sure im doing this right. my tank and fish specs are listed under my signature.

thanks in advance
James

[Aqua World Clif]

Good morning, James.

Don’t be surprised if your porcupine puffer is more willing to try something new than your children are. Fussy eaters they are not; in the wild they eat all sorts of algae and invertebrates. Offer them a mixture of meaty seafoods and plant material. Some of the prepared frozen foods that you can purchase at your LFS make excellent fodder for a puffer. Dried seaweed, frozen spirulina. Formula-Two™, and an occasional frozen garden vegetable such as peas, shredded carrots and broccoli are good choices. Clams, shrimp, scallops and mussel can be purchased at a seafood market. Try to avoid feeding them too much freeze-dried krill or plankton, especially with porcupine puffer fish. Balance is the key so don’t feed them their favorite first. They also readily eat live brine shrimp and black worms.

These fish can be gluttons. Overfeeding is not good for their health or the water chemistry of the aquarium. Maybe a more fitting name for these fish would be “piggers” rather than puffers. You can feed them once a day or more, but do not feed them heavily more than a couple of times a week. Since they are slow swimmers it may be helpful to distract their faster tankmates by dropping some food at the opposite end of the aquarium before feeding your puffer.

Similar to some bird’s beaks, puffers should be fed something that will help keep their tooth plates from overgrowing. Offer foods like mussel and uncooked shrimp right in the shell. This gives the puffer something to work on.

I hope that this helps?

Good luck with your new FOWLR.

~ Clifton