F8 with broken teeth

[2F8Puffers]

It seems that the last time that I put small pond snails in the F8 tank, one of the puffers broke its teeth. It's eating normally since, but its teeth are very jagged. I would like to try to fix the issue before (or if?) it becomes a problem. Their normal diet is frozen brine shrimp and frozen oysters. After reading info. here, I'm going to try mysid shrimp again (they were too big for the baby puffers when I first tried them) and possibly krill. Any suggestions for helping it's teeth? I'm hesitant to file since I'm inexperienced on that matter. Thanks.

[Pufferpunk]

Were his teeth overgrown to begin with? Regular pond snails are pretty thin-shelled & shouldn't break a puffer's teeth. Are they possibly MTS? They're shaped like ice cream cones & have a very hard shell--known for breaking teeth.

[Nick]

A hard diet including snails should even them out on it's own, as long as the gums aren't damaged and causing abnormal growth.

[2F8Puffers]

I was having trouble finding pond snails (my local fish store closed ) In the meantime I had tried MTS and even some sort of small saltwater snail. Most of the saltwater snails are still around, but the MTS were all partially eaten. The puffers' teeth were getting long, but I wouldn't say overgrown. I never gave it a second thought that the thicker snail shell would hurt their teeth. Silly me. So continue with the thinner-shelled pond snails and frozen shrimp and see how it goes?


On a side note, I'd like to comment about the wealth of useful information on this site. I have no idea how I didn't find it before. What a great site!!

[Nick]

Enough crispy food should do the work on it's own.

[2F8Puffers]

Thanks!

[Pufferpunk]

Just in case, be sure to read the Puffer Dentistry article in our Library.