The Puffer Forum

So I finally got the courage to attempt the first ever tooth trim on my Figure 8. You may remember my thread "Ehh...teeth trimming." Well, anyway, I was so nervous about cutting off his lips or overdosing or just in general doing something stupid that I was only able to trim a very small amount of the top teeth and none on the bottom. He recovered just fine, but I'm wondering when it would be safe to retry trimming. Oh, and he never seemed dead like it said in the article. I could see his side fins (can't remember what they're actually called, sorta brain dead today, lol) moving the whole time, but he didn't react at all when I nudged him with the net. So, I went ahead and tried trimming as he'd already been in the clove oil/water solution for about 2 minutes because I was waiting for him to act dead and flip over. Anyway, he didn't move at all when I was trimming, so I'm not sure why he didn't flip upside down and seem dead while sedated.

Like I said in the other thread, his diet should be fine for good teeth maintenance in the future, but for some reason, it isn't enough to trim down his overgrown teeth. At least, not fast enough for me. So, once I can trim them properly, that should be the last time I'll have to manually do it.

Would a couple weeks be enough? A month?

Couple of weeks should be ok. Try to get an extra pair of hands to assist you, then you can pull back the lips & trim them short.

I'll do that. Uh, I can't believe I didn't think of that when I was doing it the first time! My hubby was right there. Hopefully now that I know what it's like, I won't get so freaked out.

Man teeth trimming scares me to death, I sure I hope I never have to do that to any of my puffers. Good luck the second time around.

Mine didn't go belly up either, so I guess I wouldn't worry about it. He didn't wake up during the trimming, recovered just fine. But it still wasn't fun so now we have a .5gal snail tank. We also forgot to use gloves so I felt bad, worried I'd hurt him rubbing stuff off, but he was ok.

The worst part for me is always trying to hold the tiny fish steady without squeezing too hard.. I always think I'm crushing the little guy!

I decided eventually I was more comfortable soaking my hands in water for a time and letting them get soft and wrinkled than using gloves, just so I'd have finer touch.

Yeah, I just used the net like the article said. I didn't even think about using gloves, but I never touched him directly, so I think that was okay.

I really, really hope that the repeat trimming goes well, because I really don't want to ever do it again. Thankfully, he recovered just fine from the first sedation and seems just fine. It didn't take him long to recover either.