Getting my Valentini to eat different foods

[Spydersweb]

Hello all,
So, I picked up a young Valentini puffer about a week so, and he’s kind of a pain in the butt to feed. For the first couple of days, I couldn’t get em to eat anything. I tried mysis, krill, silversides, and SF brand carnivore cuisine, all cut into appropriate sizes, but every time he would just taste it, then spit it out. As a kind of last resort, I got some free freshwater “pest” snails from an lfs, I had to crush them (yuck) because he’s a little guy, and lo and behold, he crunched em like candy. Well, he still won’t eat anything else. I enrich the crushed snails with selcon, but I want it to eat a variety of foods. I’ve even mixed other stuff with the snails, but it will still only eat the snails. Any ideas?

 

[Ravsta]

Try Mysis. I used to feed mine Mysis and he loved the stuff. Try brine shrimp as well. They're usually not that fussy to be fair but you might have a special one ;-)

 

[smlarson72]

I put clams on the half shell down for mine. LOVES them!

 

[mort]

If you have only had it a week then that's likely the problem. Tobie puffers can take a while to strongly feed when they are in a new environment and often spend most of their time just foraging the rockwork. Once they settle in a bit they normally begin to take anything you offer, so at this stage I wouldn't worry to much.
I'd first try food that stays put like mentioned above. Clams or mussels in the half shell last a long time and allow the fish to slowly investigate and eat them.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

I put whole clams that I pop just enough to get him started. Its fun watching my other fish gather around and wait patiently for him to open it the rest of the way. Rinse them well after defrost.

At first mine ignored most food for the first 7 days or so but accepted frozen grocery store shrimp.