The Puffer Forum

Just acquired an SA puffer. It's currently a little over an inch. It hardly moves during the day, but flies all over the tank when the lights are out. Being new to the tank it's not really eating yet, but my concern are more over its teeth.

I have read in literature that SA puffers teeth grow faster than any other FW puffs, and require an almost daily snail diet, or their teeth needs to be trimmed every 3-4 months. Even with snails, they need to be trimmed every 6 months or so.

I noticed that the puff that I got had pretty long "front" teeth, and they seem to protrude out of the mouth, and pretty much results in an inability for the puff to close his mouth. He keeps opening and closing his mouth in a "biting" fashion even though there is no food around. I'm wondering if this is the normal/ok length for the SA puff, or does this mean his teeth already needs trimming? *shudders*

My other puffs do not have this problem, so I'm wondering... and if I really need to manually trim his teeth, could someone please refer some articles/instructions as to how to trim a puff's teeth?!

Thanks a million.

Check out the post in the Hospital forum on Puffer Dentistry. There are pics. Definatly sounds like your puff needs some dentistry.

Thanks!

I just managed to trim them teeth awhile ago. it was a totally traumatising experience for me.. lol, having never trimmed puffer's teeth before. I used 3 drops of clove oil initially but it never knocked out, so I increased the dose a little. It never really totally knocked out, but enough for me to trim the teeth. It's very tough to see those teeth though! The mouth is so small!!

But the job is done. It's now happily swimming in the quarantine tank. But it's still not eating the snail inside the tank. Maybe it doesn't know that's food...

Try crushing the snail & droping it in front of the fish. How much water did you have him in when you tried tranqing him? 3 drops should have done it in a small container.

3 cups of water. Around there. But my drops were tiny... so maybe that's why. I'll try crushing the snail later today. Thanks!