what is the best food for hairy puffers

[anya]

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

@mountaintoppufferkeeper

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Thanks @Chick-In-Of-TheSea. @anya it depends on your preferences l and what is available. Sorry on the slight delay:

I feed variety as much as possible to avoid nutritional deficencies and keep puffers enriched and willing to eat new foods and use varied feeding strategies.

My personal experience is if my hairys are conditioned to a feeding schedule of easy meals they wont go out of their way to actively hunt mid and top water fish that are fast and aware....but they will set ambushes in prefered locations if the fish happens to swim into it its food. Some will bait their ambush with a piece of food to lure a fish in.   Ive found they each have different food preferences by individual puffer .

I do earthworms, frozen tilapia strips, livebearer culls, and the rest of my below list for hairys. 

I have never personally seen the issue with lockjaw from thiaminase rich food. I feed a variety of food  to all my puffers including hairys and i use vitamen supplements (vita chem) so that might be helping prevent the vitamin deficency thiaminase is reported to cause.  

Frozen 50% of diet +/-

Frozen strips of tilapia ( i freeze with 6 or so drops of vitachem and a drop of garlic guard per strip)

Frozen krill ( i freeze with two squirts or so of vitachem and a few drops of garlic guard per flat )

Frozen raw crayfish ( i recieve frozen and repack with 6 or so drops of vitachem and a drop of garlic guard per crayfish)

The tilapia has mostly replaced the krill due to easy of prep, easy of purchase, and a closer to nature  food source for an ambush puffer. 

Live foods 40% of diet +/-

Earthworms - cultured here on organic greens in a worm farm in the fishroom

snails : cultured and fed with repashy gel foods, extreme fish food, and organic vegetables. 

Cull livebearers:  from other tanks cultured and fed with repashy gel foods, extreme fish food, and organic vegetables or polycultured livebearers in their tanks why are feeding off of the cleanliness of puffers feeding

Fresh (not alive) 10% of diet

Dubia roaches, crickets, superworms, soldierfly larvae ( ecofresh currently)