dentistry alternative?

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Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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dentistry alternative?

Post by CartilageFish »

I have a one 2" GSP I've had him for about 2-3 years. For a while now his teeth have been long and recently he has been have a hard time eat anything that is not brine shrimp or frozen bloodworms. I give him snails, but when he can't pick them up he gives up and swims to the top of the tank to beg. Today I attempted tooth trimming and failed. I was so afraid he would die! I put 2 drops of clove oil in 1 liter of water. I placed him in the clove oil water mixture and he started to slow down. I took him out and tried to clip his teeth, but i could not get the clippers behind his teeth! I bought the smallest cuticle clippers I could find. I gave up because my hands were shaking too badly and now he's back in his tank.

I've read so many bad things about puffer sedation I am afraid to try trimming again. I did find this thread on another website: http://puffer2.proboards.com/index.cgi? ... &thread=15

I wondered if anyone has done this before and if it will really work, or if anyone has any suggestions.

thanks
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by xrayjeeper83 »

LOL I think you may have found the original TPF
RTR wrote:Fahakas do not have tank mates, they may have swimming food reserves.
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by sevenyearnight »

That's so old, the redirect link doesn't even link here!
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by DrKennethNoisewater »

theres an rtr post where they have 52 posts haha! and i cant see why that wouldnt work!
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by CartilageFish »

yeah haha it's old...
I NEED help!!!
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by CartilageFish »

DrKennethNoisewater wrote:theres an rtr post where they have 52 posts haha! and i cant see why that wouldnt work!

Thanks I'll try it! I hope it works..
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by Pufferpunk »

Get Finquel from http://www.drsfostersmith.com. Much safer tranq. Follow my article in our Library on this. If must be done, there is no alternative unless you want to ship me over there to do it for you. Just went out on a dentistry job today! ;)
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by Reaperpilot2014 »

Even RTR's signature line is the same lol. +1 to the above. I don't consider clove oil to be good idea unless you want to euthanize the fish, which you could end up doing if you aren't careful. Finquel works great for my SAPs.
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by RTR »

LOL! That is seriously out of date. Then we only had CO2 or clove oil - neither have much margin of safety, but back then it was that or starvation.

That post was in the first month of operation for TPF. Back then I was dumb enough that PP conned me into working. :shock:
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by J-P »

if you have shaky hands, it is best to get someone else to do it for you.

For practice try and clip your own nails taking the edge off in 1 cut. Not the entire thing just a portion of it. 1 clip and a piece should go flying.

The same is with the teeth. 1 clip 1 bit. Ebb on the side of caution (not too deep). If they are still a little long you can do it again later.
if you follow me, you avoid stepping in the crap that I just did...

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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by geronimo69 »

J-P wrote:if you have shaky hands, it is best to get someone else to do it for you.

For practice try and clip your own nails taking the edge off in 1 cut. Not the entire thing just a portion of it. 1 clip and a piece should go flying.

The same is with the teeth. 1 clip 1 bit. Ebb on the side of caution (not too deep). If they are still a little long you can do it again later.
Sounds like a good plan, and start feeding snails every day afterwards!


I've never had a GSP, but my Fahaka and Ceylons teeth stay trimmed just by my constant feeding of snails, mussles and crays.

Do GSP teeth grow faster than others? They must...???
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by J-P »

That I can't answer ... but they can be kept at a reasonable level with a proper diet. Once past that level it is time for a manual trim.
if you follow me, you avoid stepping in the crap that I just did...

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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by DrKennethNoisewater »

these kinds of posts make me empty my breeder tank into my puffer tank in a short period of time.....
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by CartilageFish »

J-P wrote:if you have shaky hands, it is best to get someone else to do it for you.

For practice try and clip your own nails taking the edge off in 1 cut. Not the entire thing just a portion of it. 1 clip and a piece should go flying.

The same is with the teeth. 1 clip 1 bit. Ebb on the side of caution (not too deep). If they are still a little long you can do it again later.
So last night I was able to clip off a little bit. I tried it again today with no sedative. I just held him with the net in a large bowl of water and he let me clip off a little bit more. His belly turned black so I quit for today. Now he is able to get dried shrimp in his mouth!
I'm going to Petco right now to get some snails!
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Re: dentistry alternative?

Post by DrKennethNoisewater »

gj!
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