Feeding Puffers and Triggers???

[King 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

 

[Apple5150]

I think alot of it depends on what you are feeding. I used to keep puffers and fed them every other day, feeding them boiled clams from the grocery store.

 

[shallowreef]

I feed my trigger and grouper chunks of silversides.

 

[steve-s]

Stick with raw meaty seafoods. Frequency can be determined/balanced with quantity. Meaning you can feed daily without issue as long as you do not feed to excess. The trigger must be fed at least daily. Scallops, shrimp, krill, squid etc.

With the puffer, do not rely on soft meaty foods for a majority of it's diet. The puffer needs "in shell" seafoods on a fairly regular basis. This will help file down the teeth and keep them from overgrowing the mouth and preventing feeding. Just be sure any live shellfish is frozen 2 weeks prior to use so you ensure any parasites/bacteria have been destroyed. If you're not too sqweemish, you can also crack open a few snails.

As with all fish it is very important they get a variety of different foods, vitamin/HUFA enriched and some veggie matter. With carnivores, they need much less veggie matter but still some. The thing to keep in mind is they eat the whole animal in the wild which means the digestive/system gut which also contains a fair amount of algaes.

Cheers
Steve

 

[burning2nd]

sounds like a hella lot a work, thats one fish ill never be geting

 

[shallowreef]

I seem to think they are worth it.

 

[oldsaint]

I don't have experience with a puffer but the Niger trigger is worth the trouble. They are highly intelligent fish. IMO along the lines of a dog. AFTER mine is well fed we play all sorts of game. He rolls over in the tank to have his belly scratched and when he gets bored with that I cup my hand against the glass and he'll swim in and out of it. I swear it's true. I do have pics.
Unfortunately now he's gotten in the habbit of attacking the feeding stick I use for my snowflake eel. If I chase him with it he just thinks it's a new game.

 

[akaatomic]

I have a porcupine puffer and a picasso triger. I feed them frozen prawn, dried krill, frozen brine shrimp, mysid shrimp, and any other frozen foods for carnivores. Shelled meal are better for the teeth reason mentioned earlier. They say that they only need to be fed every other day. I feed mine once a day to prevent them from eating snail/hermits and it allows me to miss a day and not worry.

 

[shallowreef]

I never tried to feed my trigger by hand. To afraid to get bit. Although i use to feed my brownbanded bamboo sharks by hand and that was really cool.

 

[steve-s]

Try to avoid dried/freeze dried foods with puffers. It can lead to vitamin deficiencies and goiter/lock jaw. Not to mention intestinal ailments.

Cheers
Steve