The Puffer Forum

pufferpuss wrote:Hello!
So, i am considering getting a SAP, and even if you feed snails and other crunchies, you have to trim their teeth??

Mine live on a diet of nothing but gut-loaded snails and I still have to trim their teeth every couple of months.

Any idea what exactly they eat in nature where noone trims their teeth AFAIK?

I feed lot's of snails, pill bugs (quite hard, but unfortunately not liked very much by this species) and will try small frozen crayfish, which have a pretty tough shell, too. Their teeth don't grow longer for half a year as far as I can see, but they are not grinded down, either. Kind of an equilibrium, which I fear can change any time as these fish grow fast.

Boxermom - how hard is your water (GH & KH) and are you using common pond or ramshorns or both? I only very rarely had to trim teeth on SAPs on a basically snail diet. For them it was mostly pond snails, as the larger Ramshorns were used for larger puffers.

Corvus - they eat fish, plants, shrimp/prawns, and other planktonic invertebrates. That is stomach content analysis, it is possible that the plant component is from snipping inverts on plants. Relative percentages were not specified.

Hmmm, not sure I can trim teeth. It sounds freaky! Anyone have a link to a video or pics of this process? I really like the SAP I found- so much personality!!

Thank's RTR! Of the food items you listed, probably only the shrimp can wear down their teeth. I will try the crayfish.

RTR, not sure exactly how hard our water is but its very hard. I usually refer to it as liquid rock. I'll see if we have kits to test the GH and KH to get actual numbers for you. They eat primarily pond snails but there are a few ramshorns as well. I know they are eating the shells, not just sucking out the meat, as there are no shells to be found anywhere. One is even chewing on a large decorative shell periodically.

pufferpuss, there are instructions in the hospital forum complete with very good photos.

Perhaps the shell eating is why the beak is growing so rapidly? If they are getting lots of calcium and minerals from breaking down those shells, they would be able to grow their teeth much more rapidly. Shakespeare crushes the snail shells, but spits out nearly all of the hard bits and only swallows the meat.

But the whole point of feeding them snails is for them to crunch the shells, no?

I'm just theorizing here, but if the SAP's can digest them really well, and are eating them, it would explain the high growth rate of their teeth despite constantly eating snails and wearing them down. Perhaps the kind of snails and shellfish they get in the wild are much harder to metabolize calcium from than the very thin shelled pond and ramshorn snails we typically feed.

thanks boxermom!

The SAPs (and other puffers) do not swallow and digest the shells freely. My long term puffer tanks all have a certain percentage of the substrate made up of crushed shells - it sorts out as the top layer when you Python the substrate, but does not get carried over and out by the vacuum(lower density than the gravel, but less than fine sand). Watch the fish carefully as they grind the shell in their pharyngeal teeth and they spit the largest fragment out their mouth and blow the smaller bits out the gills. Calcium metabolism is pretty well regulated in all bony critters - they are highly unlikely to grow larger teeth due to shell-eating, even if they did swallow the whole thing (as many non-puffer snail-eaters do).

Boxermom - your water is likely harder than mine then (I have GH 7-9, KH about 7 or a bit more). You don't have fragle shells with that hardness, the fish should be getting plenty of wear. Strange.

Full disclosure: For one of my SAPs, I've had to do her teeth twice in a 2 month period. However, I don't believe I got them as short as I could have the first time. It was my first experience with trimming and I didn't want to go too short and wanted to get it over fast. With my second SAP, it came with overgrown teeth and again, I probably didn't get them as short as I could/should have. But in a very short time (less than 2 months), the first one's teeth did grow to the point where they did need to be trimmed again and I did do a better job with them. I haven't had the second one very long but anticipate needing to do hers again within the next month or two.

Hubby says we have no GH/KH kits, so I'll order some.

I didn't think they were supposed to eat much of the shell either, good to get confirmation of that, at least.

Well to be honest, I don't know how much they are eating or blowing, but they could even be swallowing them whole for all I know. I just know there are tons of baby snails smaller than their eyes and I've seen them attacking them. Don't see anything fall out of their mouths or out the gills, but I suppose its possible.

I am very intersted in getting a sap and this thread has been most useful, thanks guys.

Was think when clipping teeth how do you hold them, in a towel or through net, what about spines?? if the FW's have any??