The Puffer Forum

Hi guys, i've got a question that i can not found on the forum. My fahaka sometimes eats her lip..

When i give her a snail bigger than 2cm, (or a lobster) she's hurting her lip..
I've tried to give her small food for a wile, and it was getting better, but she like the big food more! She also has trouble getting the little food, sow i don't know what is the best thing to do..

Some pics of her lip




I hope someone can tell me if i must do anything or something.. ( i hope you all undestand what i say! )

Your english is extremely good, its very easy to understand you

I wonder if she needs her teeth trimmed? They don't look very long, but its hard to see sometimes until you pull their lips back. You can see them a little, so maybe they are long/sharp.

Maybe some of the other fahaka owners can compare them to their fahakas and judge if they are too long.

Her teeth are very tiny i think... some time's i think by myself that they are too short.. compare by my other puffers are Faya's teeth real short...

Maybee it is still a tick, because she was neglected for the first 9 months of her life... ??

Hm.. perhaps giving her a softer food for now? What kind of snails are you feeding her, do you know?

I already did that but doesn't work.. In the Netherlands called Apple snail. I don't know how you call it.. And i always break the snail with my tools.. sow, it's not that the food is too hard i think..

Hm..To me it doesn't look like her teeth are too long, I wonder why she is biting the lip this way...

It is very odd.

Her top lip doesn't look normal, so maybe she was injured when young and the scar tissue or way it healed just gets in the way of her teeth.

I noticed in the first pictures you posted of her that her lips looked strange, but I suppose there's no way to know if they look that way because she bites them all the time or from an injury in the past.

Other than a tooth trimming, which I agree it doesn't really look like she needs, I don't know what you could do other than keep your water nice and clean so she heals up and doesn't get infected when she does bite herself.

Could it be swollen and getting in the way when she eats? She dosen't look like she needs a trimming.

Maybe on the inside it's swollen, you could check that bauk. From the outside it isn't swollen (seen it myself), also the teeth aren't that long that they need trimming. Only occasionally you can see her teeth.

From the outside the skin of Faya is more ripped, could be a wound from the past that opens up by her eating style.. Bauk has also tried feeding her soft food for a few weeks. It helped during that time, but after her lip was all ripped open again.

Looks to me like she might have an underbite, meaning her lower beak is much larger than her upper, which causes it to overlap her top lip on occasion while she eats. I'd GUESS trimming just her lower beak(which I agree does not look overgrown) so it's in proportion with the top, then a diet of softer foods for a while so both can grow in a bit might help, but I'm really just guessing on this.

Her teeth are realy short! It's nothing with the teeth.. I gave her this week only shrimps, verry sorft and yesterdag she's bleeding again.. So i think it's the way how she eats..and that is not a thing that i can change..
She try to pik her food verry slow, but when she taste it, she's like Bruce of Nemo.. Like a killer in her come up

I've tried a few things, but nothing like's to help, so i think i can't help her with this...

Try feeding her smaller portions more often during the day. Maybe she won't get so excited and try to gobble the food.

That doesnt work.. I've tried it for two weeks, but then she was al the time laying on the sand, with a ful tummy being very lazy..
Now her lip is fine, there is no skin hangin on it, and it looks like that she can handel it now.. the left side of her lips are a little bit shorter now, but it doesnt look like she have a problem with it..

The only thing is that she doenst eat snails anymore now..

Today, a new discovery...

While giving her a crab found in my saltwater tank I discovered she doesn't have teeth in her upper jaw.. Only her bottom teeth where showing when she wanted to nip something of the crab. And she bites with her upper lip in stead of teeth...

Does anyone has experience with a puffer with no teeth in bottom or upper jaw? What should I do? Just keep her like this and make sure the bottom teeth don't grow too long? That's what I prefer, I don't want to happen any bad to her and it looks like whe are both happy with the current solution. (Except for the fact that her upper lip is hurting when she eats hard stuff..)

Just want the best for my puffer-kiddo!

It does look from the pictures that she doesn't have top teeth - how strange - I wonder if that is a birth defect, or as a result of an old injury? I really don't see how there is anything that you can do to help her - apart from clean water, foods that are easy to eat & making sure her bottom teeth stay as short as possible. Keep in touch & let us know how she gets on.