Soon to be puffer servant

[Mceryn]

I am about to become a new puffer owner, finally, after years of seeing those little faces and wanting to bring one home! I have a 40b that I am preparing while I try to decide on SAP or F8. Of course my LFS has GSPs and boy is it tempting... I have done lots of reading and now need to make a decision, as tank setup depends on which species I go with. They all have their pros and cons but my comfort level is with fresh water. My concern with the SAPs is their teeth... if fed appropriately, it is likely their teeth will still need trimming? Or is that just for those that are not provided sufficient crunch in their diet? If I go with F8, how easy is it to acclimate the plants? I do prefer to have live plants if possible. I do NOT want to trim teeth out of fear I would hurt my fish, but could do it if absolutely needed.
Of course I may just have to get all three eventually... and there are those cute dwarf puffers...
Any input regarding choice and tank set up is very welcome.

[Pufferpunk]

These might help:
library/puffers-in-focus/fig8/
library/puffers-in-focus/sap/
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebinde ... tistry.htm

How do you plan on cycling the tank?

[Mceryn]

I will cycle before adding fish. But since I will be using media from my established fw tank, will need to raise sg gradually if I am going to do bw. So I do need to make a decision asap. Hence my questions above.

[Pufferpunk]

Did the articles help?

[Mceryn]

I did read the articles before even joining the forum, and yes they helped a lot. However,

"Without enough snails offered to them, they would need their teeth trimmed every 4-6 months. I have both species and do trim their teeth often."

My hope would be to manage the teeth with "enough" snails or other crunchy morsels... but is it likely I would still need to trim? Anyone been successful managing this through diet alone?

[Pufferpunk]

It seems that snails are the key. Crunchier than anything else you could offer them.

[pufferjw]

I did read the articles before even joining the forum, and yes they helped a lot. However,

"Without enough snails offered to them, they would need their teeth trimmed every 4-6 months. I have both species and do trim their teeth often."

My hope would be to manage the teeth with "enough" snails or other crunchy morsels... but is it likely I would still need to trim? Anyone been successful managing this through diet alone?

I fed mine almost entirely snails and they did not have beak issues that I could see. However, my oldest SAP died 2 years after I bought him, so it's still POSSIBLE that it could have become an issue in the future. However, if you think about it they don't have their teeth trimmed in the wild, they merely eat shellfish. And since those at fish stores are all wild caught, they could be almost any age, yet they don't have overgrown beaks despite never having them trimmed. Additionally, even if they do always have beak problems at some point, wild individuals with slower growing beaks would have always lived longer and mated more, meaning by now - after countless generations of progressively stronger puffers - the species as a whole should be able to go a VERY long time without beak growth issues. And so while I don't have definitive evidence, I would be willing to bet that beak trimmings are not necessary with a proper diet.