The Puffer Forum

LOL Very true! Poor guy, that's just not fair to have to live like that.

Pufferpunk wrote:He says it's quite small. It's those huge eyes that bug me. It's like the rest of the fish is stunted but the eyes kept growing.

Some unscrupulous Asian Arowana sellers stunt their fish to increase colour depth to increase the value. A telltale sign is the size of the Arowana's eye is much too big in comparison to the length of its body. This looks very similar, body is small and the eyes are massive, perhaps stunting of large puffers has the same characteristics to this.

I'm in tears here..

Poor baby...

I hope you can get them the help they need...poor fishies...and educate the owner a little bit.

The owner is really a good guy, just uneducated about the species. I'll be by there Friday night.

fingers crossed you can work your magic

Sad!

HOw did the dentistry go? I have always wondered how grabbing a fahaka and trimming his teeth would go. I think i would ware chain mail gloves like meat cutters use.

I'm going tomorrow. Somehow, I don't think this weak, starved puffer will put up much of a fight. My biggest concern is tranqilizing the thing & being sure it'll wake up.

Good Luck

Poor little guy!
Good luck Pufferpunk!

Well, I wound up only charging him $50 & he gave me $60. Probably coulda gotten more but at least I helped a very stunted puffer. He has 2 of these--both are 4 years old & should be at least a foot long by now. They're living in a 30g tall & are only 4" long.

Here he is after the trimming:


More pics:




Hre's the other puffer, which didn't need trimming of it's teeth at all. both puffers are about 4-5" & live in 30g talls (they're 4 years old):



He's talking about getting a 55g for 1 of the puffers & putting the other one in the 75g his severums are in (he'll rehome the cichlids).

The poor little guys! They are soooooo skinny.

It sounds horrible, but I'd love to see an autopsy on one of these compared to a full grown fahaka and see the internal differences. I bet the organ sizes are all out of whack, some things normal sized, others squished down...

poor little fishes. I wonder how many more of these there are out there because sales people said that they only need a small tank. I wonder if people can still debate the reality of stunting with evidence like this.

wow the teeth look oads better, just a shame theya re so skinny

They're not actually as skinny as they appear in those pics. More like dwarfed.

I just had to do a second trimming on Chiquita, my SAP. Wasn't nearly as nerve-wracking as the first time, as I had a better idea of what I was doing. Used less clove oil and she came around much faster. Her teeth are still a little long but not nearly as bad as they were (although they weren't bad enough to keep her from eating). I'm paranoid about cutting them too short and/or cutting her lips.

Is it less nerve-wracking for you to do bigger ones or smaller, PP? Did you Dremel these guys?