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i just got two dwarf puffers for a five gallon. they live with a group of ghost shrimp, which i hope get eaten. anyway i got some frozen brine shrimp and some very small dry food, its like dust

Your DPs may eat the shrimp, but many don't - you'll just have to wait and see. Frozen brine shrimp are not very nutritious, and puffers rarely, if ever, eat dry food. I'd add frozen bloodworms to alternate with brine shrimp and small snails are great, too. The only dry type foods puffers commonly eat are the freeze dried worms, shrimp and plankton out there...

Eric

But not all frozen Brine shrimp is low in nutrition,some have add vitamins and fatty acids, so look for that for the puffers. Or something like it...

You can also hatch some BBS and right after they hatch they have lots of nutrition. So thats something to also think about.

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pnh

Good luck. About half of the dp's sold are caught wild and will usually only accept live food. Small snails is their fav. Mine starved out because they refused every attempt I made to feed them, they would't take anything but did take all the snails in there. Poor little guys.

i did get them some snails, but the puffers havent eaten anything, but i did read it will take them time to get used to the environment and become comfortable enough to eat

If they refuse to eat you can always look around outside for some mosquito larvae as a last resort. They almost always eat that.

They might not eat the shrimp unless theyre tiny, but they probably will mutilate them trying,they will however go for tiny live worms of almost any kind, most free swimming insect larvae and snails of under 7-8 mm shell length. Some will take brineshrimp too, which is better than nothing.

I have had my three dp's a long time. They do not bother my ghost shrimp. They love snails, frozen blood worms, frozen brine shrimp(they go crazy for live brine shrimp), frozen mysis shrimp. Mine do not eat any dry prepared foods. they also do not eat frozen daphnia or frozen tubifex worms. Good luck with yours.

Mine ate snails the first day but took about a week to eat frozen bloodworms. They go by movement at first so you need something you can hold and wiggle in front of them. I used a dropper and squeezed the bloodworms to the end then wiggled them in front of the puffer. After that they will sometimes go to eating other frozen foods like frozen brineshrimp or frozen squid but it's very rare for them to eat dried foods. They would also prefer a bite size chunk to powdered food. Puffers will go after most live foods once they are settled in and if they are happy with their new home.

I put mine into a snail infested tank they feasted, I also augmented with nicly sized bloodworms they love the little buggers.I ope everything turns out for you... they are great fish!