teeth

[DRRT]

I have two little puffers, a valentini and a hawaiian (jactator). Both of them have british teeth, no offense. The valentini has long teeth that haven't been trimmed in over 2 years and the hawaiian has semi long teeth, not trimmed in 9 months. They are both eating well and the hawaiian is really fat. I give them krill and there are small hermit crabs in the tank. Ocasionally I see them try to get to the amphipods on the rock, but it does nothing to their teeth. When they eat, they normally get food stuck between their teeth and they have PLAQUE!

I have read about the thing with the trimming and the oil, but I am not the most careful person and I know bad things will happen. What can I do?

[Pufferpunk]

All you feed them is krill? You really must give them a varied diet. If you need to trim & am afraid of using clove oil, Drs Foster & Smith sell another sort of safer tranq.

[DRRT]

Hi,

What I meant was the only thing I feed my puffers that can wear down their teeth are krill. They get other stuff like brine and mysis shrimp, and clam and squid flesh. I managed to take pictures of them with their teeth in focus, but I don't know how to post pics yet, but I will try.

DRRT

[DRRT]

Yeah!

[bonnie3188]

Oh my god! You really need to trim their teeth asap, especially the Valentini's!

They are at a length where no foods would wear them down, you will need to cut them yourself. If you dont trim their teeth Im pretty sure they will die because their teeth will fuse their mouth together, making it impossible for them to eat.

[Pufferpunk]

That was the Valentini's teeth or did he have food in his mouth? Looks like they have a pretty good gut on them. After trimming, try feeding some sort of molluscs, so they can scrape the meat out of them.

[DRRT]

No, the valentini was not eating at the time. Will they really fuse together? I have been concerned about their teeth for some time, but just haven't done anything about it. The only time I ever managed to wear down the hawaiian's teeth was when it went after something in the rock and it chipped off half its tooth.

What is the exact name of that Foster & Smith stuff? I hate going to that web site, it always slows down my computer, so I would like to see it in as little clicks as possible.

When you say mollusk, do you mean like serving them some oysters on the half-shell?

[Pufferpunk]

When you say mollusk, do you mean like serving them some oysters on the half-shell?

Exactly!

Here's a direct link for Finquel:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... nquil&Np=1

[bonnie3188]

Will they really fuse together?

I think they will either fuse together or become so long that they will block off access to the mouth. If you think about it, they can only open their jaw a certain amount so once their teeth are too long they wont be able to eat. The jactators teeth look like they are forming in like a circle or something, with just a round opening in the middle. These could easily block off the mouth.

As i said before, id get onto it straight away. Seeing as though the teeth are really really long, it shouldnt be too fiddly. Get someone to help you and you should be able to get most of it off.

On a seperate note, are the puffers in the same tank? What size? Id love to see some pics. I have a Valentini and a Papuan in the same tank, but they just sort of ignore each other. Do yours hang out together or fight?

[DRRT]

I am still very leery about the clipping. Do you think I could bring them to my LFS and have them do it for me? I would bring the anesthetic. I once had a lemonpeel with that white stuff (I forgot what it was called) on its fins, but not deadly. The LFS said to scrape it off with my fingernail, I did. The fish died the next day, probably from all the stress.

I'm going to clean my tank tomorrow so when I'm done I'll take some pics. The valentini was actually in another, larger tank with triggers, large angels and tangs. No one bothered it, but it was stuck eating the scraps. So I moved it into my 50 gal with the hawaiian and 2 tangs. The hawaiian showed off for the first couple days, but now they ignore each other. One day I'll get a bigger tank for when the tangs are bigger, but now there are very few arguements.

[Pufferpunk]

I think you'd be way better off doing it yourself with our instruction (step-by-step instructions w/pics, in our Library), rather than having someone that told you to scrape infected tissue off your fish, instead of giving the proper info on how to heal it. Geeezzz, fish stores just keep getting worse & worse!

[DRRT]

My parents will not allow me to perform the operation the puffers need. They were the ones who wanted me to call the LFS. But the LFS told me to call the vet, but they are closed. I am struggling to convince them to just let me do it and suffer my own consequences by attempting it on the Hawaiian first (the one I bought).

Here are some tank pics I just took:

[Pufferpunk]

Nice tank, How long has it been set up?

How old are you? Is this really your parent's tank? Show them my article in the library on Pufferfish Dentistry. It's quite simple.

[Puffer Queen]

Can you post a clearer pic of the teeth? It appears that the upper set is actually split?

[DRRT]

This is my tank, bought for me by my parents. It has been up since June of 2006. But I take care of it, cleaning, feeding, stocking, etc, and it is in my room. I will be 18 on the 4th, less than a week from now. When I go to college, the tank will be moved to my dad's office and the stand painted to match the wall in that room. My room will become a guest bedroom/piano room. My dad will probably bleach the coral head and decorations, he feels all microalge is bad and wants it to be "clean." He has a 120 gal which is in the family room, but I only assist in taking care of it and have no real influence on what goes on in that tank. I emailed the article to him, but I don't know if he was impressed.

The hawaiian puffer cracked its tooth a couple months ago after I added a couple more hermit crabs, none of which were eaten. I will try to get clearer pics. I didn't realize how fuzzy they were when I was looking at them on the viewer on the camera. The puffers don't like the orange light that comes on before it takes a picture and sometimes they move.