The Puffer Forum

We've noticed that Mr. Puffer's beak is just too big. I'm not sure what to do with him (or her, what do I know?). We've fed him snails before but I'm not sure if he eats them. He goes after them when we put them in but they fall down and he leaves them alone. We don't have a tank full of snails so I'm guessing he does eat them. He can still eat but I think we're going to have to grind it down ourselves. It does seem to be interfering with his ability to eat larger things. How do we go about doing this? Would a pet store do it? Sedate him?

He's a green spotted puffer, about 2". 30 gallon tank. Normally feed him bloodworms, dried gammarus, some snails and the occasional tankmate who dares to eat his food. We did enough research to know he should be in brackish water but didn't realize we should be measuring this stuff, so we'll start that. We've had issues getting smaller snails and I imagine he'd eat live ghost shrimp but they're always out. Are those a good option for him?

Thanks. That doesn't sound quite as scary as the other ones I'd read. We'll give it a shot tonight

One site said that GSP are brackish but will need to go to full saltwater beyond 4". We have no intentions of starting up a saltwater tank at this point. I don't want him dying because of it. How quickly do they grow? We've had him for maybe 9 months now and he's only grown .5" or so.

Yep they'll need a SW tank. They don't grow that fast luckily so you still have time.

It is not necessary to raise him as high as SW but high-end BW is highly recommended. The reason we do say SW is you can change over to much more efficient ways of filtering--live rock/sand & protein skimmer, reducing the amounts of water changes, saving $$$ on $alt.

My Captain Abe needs a tooth trim, but I'm a bit chicken and haven't worked up the nerve to try it yet. I don't want him to hate me after I sedate him.

I just used Finquel on my large modestus & everything went very smoothly.

Well we did it! Thanks for the link. We got the clove oil water and fresh water ready. He swam right into the net, scooped him out with a bowl and transferrer into clove oil water. He didn't freak at all or try to swim away frantically in the little bowl. We started with 3 drops in 3 cups of water. We weren't sure he was out since he never went belly up so we added a drop, still no belly up like that link had showed them but we held him and he looked pretty dead to us. We went clip-clip and back into the tank-water bowl he went. Woke up and 30 seconds later when he started trying to jump out we put him back in the tank.

All in all it was pretty cool but I hope we won't need to do it again. His belly goes a bit black if we come close so he's a little pissy but we gave him some snails and he's hunting around finding them happily this morning. And his mouth looks much better.

You make it sound so easy!

Congrats on having an easy go of it! Did you stir the water with the CO in it? I need to update that article.

I'm glad everything turned out okay
Make sure he gets lots of hard shelled foods to prevent his teeth from overgrowing again (crabs, scallops, crayfish, clams, etc.).

Yep, we added the 3 drops to a bit of the water, shook it up and added it to the rest. Same with the extra drop. I'd read another article that gave humane euthenasea using clove oil and vodka (awwwww) but it said to shake it up.

He's so happy now. Not sure if it's the trimming or the influx of baby snails.

problay a mixture of both

yea finquel works amazing in 2 ways

sedates fish.
2. kills fish if they get really sick and you dont want to flush them

some puffers just dont care too, its a pretty quick process, im just waiting for the day ny store gets a call from some panicked customer "i need my puffers teeth clipped" everone is silent....

...then i step up..


"ill take it from here guys..."

One time my puffers beak started growing a bit long i just tried feeding him raw shrimp from the supermarket. Make sure none of the flesh is exposed so he has to eat through the shell. I also wrap a thin layer of flesh over the tail bit which is the hardest part of the shrimp, this has helped when i thought i needed to trim the beak myself. Give it a try, it could work with yours.