As some of you puffer keepers know, puffers are so attractive, and full of personality. Each puffer is so unique, with its own personality and habits that you may never find in another puffer. So like I've said before, puffers are like puppy dogs in the aquarium rather than fishes.
First of all, some say that puffers are really picky eaters, and sometimes they will starve themselves to death rather than eating what you provide. This is true in some cases, but the chance it happens is not that great. Unless they are in really bad conditions, they will survive even months of not feeding, and they will eat eventually. I have kept around 10 species of puffers in the past, and none of them have starved themselves to death.

In most cases, when you keep your puffer in the proper conditions, they will (pretty much) eat anything you put in there. This is why I will try to show you how it can be done.

One of the most common causes of death for puffers in the aquarium is the owner not providing them a variety of foods. I have seen people only feed freeze-dried shrimp to their puffer. I myself have done that in the past. It may be okay for them to eat only that for awhile, but it is definitely not proper in the long run. Some may say that puffers in the wild don't eat many varieties of food either, but don't forget that the things they eat, (such as shrimp, crabs, etc) have fed on a variety of food before being eaten by the puffer. This is like gut loading the food you feed with a variety of things, which can be very difficult. And even if you are able to do it, it would take a lot of time and energy, which is not really worth it in my opinion. Another method people use is to soak the food in liquid vitamins, I have done that also, which I also think it is not efficient.

One thing most puffer keepers would agree on is that puffers rarely take any processed food, they will only go after live, meaty seafood, worms, etc. This is not always true. Like my puffer, it is completely trained to eat NLS, which is good, because as many of you know, NLS is a complete balanced food which will provide great health and condition to the fish. The method I use is in no way innovative, a lot of people have done it before with many types of animals. I have done it with reptiles, like turtles, too.

The meaty food I used for my puffer was a whole shrimp. Because my puffer is pretty big, it can swallow a whole shrimp in one bite. This should work well on other large species puffers too, but for smaller puffers, you may have to adjust accordingly.

First, butterfly the shrimp from the back with a knife, or you can buy shrimp that is already butterflied. The trick is to not butterfly the shrimp all the way, just cut it half way on the back, this way the shrimp does not open too big, and it will hold the pellets when it enters the water. When you feed it, try to get the puffer to the surface of the water, so it can eat it quickly. Try not to let the shrimp sit for too long, or the pellets can fall out. Most large species of puffers do not chew too much, rather they swallow the food whole, so this method works pretty good for me, and the pellets have only fallen out a few times.



Press the the shrimp firmly, the pellets will "sink" into the shrimp meat a little, you should feel the round pellets from outside of the shrimp with your finger, and also kind of see the pellets from the outside. This helps to hold the pellets in the shrimp more tightly.



Now close the cut a little bit, try to return the shrimp as close to the original shape as possible, so the puffer doesn't notice too much.



Now you should be good to go. Try to feed the puffer like this for a month or so. Then try the pellets without the shrimp. They should eat it. One important trick is to always get the puffer to the surface to feed it. This is important because it's better use a floating type of pellet, to better remove any uneaten pellets.

Some of you may wonder, how many pellets should feed? This will be different puffer by puffer. Some puffers will stop eating once they are full. I know when my puffer is done, from the shape of the stomach and my puffer tends to play with it's food (chew it and spit it out) when it is full.

So here is the end of the story, please take a look at the video of my mbu feeding on NLS. (these are NLS EX Large fish pellets). I feed basically 50/50 with pellets, and meaty seafood, and once in awhile some crabs, snails, and crawfish to trim the teeth.

Thank you all for reading this, I truly hope this will add some ideas to your feeding, and I hope this will work on your puffer too. I have only done it with my Mbu, so I am not sure if others will have the same results, so if it does not, please forgive me. Like I said, each puffer is so different than others.

Here is the video on youtube (720P HD available):