The Puffer Forum

I was told by my local fish store that a good way to keep the teeth plates trimmed of my porcupine puffer is to put some of my frozen krill into the shell and give it to the puffer. I have done this before and it went well, it got all of the food from the shell and left it empty on the ground. When I tried this again tonight the porcupine swallowed the entire shell. It happened yesterday around 5:00 PM, and it is now 11:14 AM the next day, and the puffer still seems fine, although there is a large bulge on its stomach, and it has not regurgitated the shell yet.

Should I be concerned about this? Will this kill my fish? Is there anything I can do? I do not know if porcupine puffer fish are capable of digesting shells.

Thank you!!!!

I think your porc will be fine. Puffers are know to eat some types of shells at times. Mine have ate whole snails, shell and all. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, it shouldn't have any problems. Puffers eat crustaceans as their main diet. If they were unable to digest the shells, their main diet wouldn't be crustaceans, haha!


However, I was under the impression that porcupine puffers don't have a problem with their beaks growing too long. I heard that they do not have the same teeth as most other puffers (ones that grow constantly), but instead they have two fused plates. The plates can regrow, but they don't overgrow, so to speak.

[Read a post by Puffer Queen that states that Porcupine Puffers do not suffer from overgrown beaks]