The Puffer Forum

Great pics! Doesn't he look cheeky with that snail?
Ok, taking a look I think it wouldn't do any harm to trim them a little. They do seem a bit on the long side.

That pic is from a few days ago, and it seems like they may have already started coming down a bit. I've been much more consistent with giving him snails the last week. I've been giving him snails at least 3 times a week besides the krill, clams, squids, etc. I'll give it a couple more weeks, just to see if it will help. I really, really don't want to try trimming if I don't have to. I have everything except the knock out stuff. I'm still undecided on what to get, although now I'm leaning more toward the clove oil. If Finquel is so hard to dose and still has that death risk, I'd rather go with the cheaper clove oil.

I'm still interested in that oregano oil thing too. Does anyone else use that? How well does it work? What's the dosing? Is there any risk associated with it?

Finquel isn't hard to dose, you just have to make sure you get the dosage right. It's just about being careful. You can overdose clove oil too, and there are reports (anecdotal) of long-term damaging effects. Although, I opt for that. If give Finquel a go myself if I could get my hands on it, but admittedly I would never chance it on a prized fish.

See how the natural way of teeth filing goes: your puffer won't be any the worse for a couple of weeks of 'wait and see'. If it's still as long as the picture shows in a week or two then you probably should consider it.

Not sure about oregano oil...I've not heard about that before. Maybe PP or someone else can help on that?

Important follow up to my previous post.

I can no longer recommend the use of clove oil. If you see I posted here about concerns I had with the long term scientific effects of clove oil. I lost one of my SAPs not long ago after what I recall was the 5th trimming. My SAPs have been increasingly slower when recovering from sedation. The one that died took the longest to recover, went on to exhibit strange swimming behaviour (lack of coordination, apparent blindness, inability to use all fins at once for swimming instead alternating), and died within 24 hours.

Today I trimmed a different SAPs teeth; the procedure went fine, as usual, but again I noticed recovery was slower than usual. I had given a lower dosage than usual in light of my earlier loss. This SAP is now exhibiting exactly the same behaviour as the one which died, and one eye appears cloudy. I am expecting it will also die shortly.

What a month....*sigh*

So, I would have to advise against clove oil. If you are to trim the teeth of your F8 then I would go with Finquel.

Do you think that it would be fine to treat with clove oil just the once? I can't fine Finquel anywhere around here, and I guess I'm having a hard time justifying spending that much on it if I'm only goind to use it once. I'm sure that the diet I'm giving him now will take care of his teeth in the future, it's just that I let it go so long.

Fosters and Smith has it.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... 1095968601

Check the sticky in the Gen Disc forum about getting a discount from them.

Yeah, I've already done the Ebates thing. But, I can get clove oil around here for much cheaper than I can get Finquel, especially since I'd have to pay shipping for the finquel. I have a plenty good diet (now) for Grün, so he should be fine once I trim him just once. I really don't think that I'd ever need to trim again, so I just can't justify spending so much on Finquel when I'd only need it once and never again.

In my situation, wouldn't it be okay to use clove oil once? He's never been under it before, and he likely never would again. As long as I'm very careful with dosing, the risk would be about the same as with Finquel, since Finquel can cause death as well. I can see how, in the long run, Finquel is a much better choice. But, since I'd only use it once...

Once is ok IMO, as long as he is healthy & it is used correctly.

Yeah, he's fat and happy. His only problem is the teeth. I'll be extremely careful, though. In this at least, I'm glad I'm paranoid, lol.