The Puffer Forum

basically he eats fine, but sometimes when he's eating some of the food flies out of his mouth. he eats enough for his belly to get fat and round. i don't really know the difference between his teeth and beak. i looked at the pics in the hospital tank but wouldn't know what to clip anyways. i do try to get him to eat a few snails every week. there is a nice sized gap between his beak. any pics would help greatly so i would know what to look for in case of "overgrowth".

Okkie, so from what I understand if you can easily see his teeth when his mouth is in normal puffer closed fashion he probably needs a trim or will be needing one.

this is pufferpunks picture! NOT MINE, I hope she doesn't mind me posting this here.



See his teeth poking on out there? That is a puffer in need of a tooth cutting. I've read that you do 1 drop of clove oil to 1 cup of water. Have steady hands, hold through the net and quickly snip snip fish teeth. There is an article in the library about it which is a must read for any puffer owner that suspects teeth may be getting out of hand.

oh wow i looked at the hospital sticky and now that pic, mine is FINE. i finally saw his teeth and they look good. i just got a bit super paranoid after reading the teeth article. thanks for the very quick response.

pufferpoison wrote:oh wow i looked at the hospital sticky and now that pic, mine is FINE. i finally saw his teeth and they look good. i just got a bit super paranoid after reading the teeth article. thanks for the very quick response.

hehe yeah I get superly paranoid about my fish. i always worry about every small tiny little thing.

Hey man, it's always better to be safe then sorry

I'd rather know everything in advance just incase I ever need it in the future. Now you know what to look for! Good luck with your little dude =)

no he's fine, my brackish finally cycled after 5 weeks, don't worry he never suffered. My mom (which no i don't live at home) bought me a 29 gallon tank for my b-day and also a GSP the same day. I took him home and read and read and read and then i read some more, this was after i added water and detox and dropped him in. i have changed water more than like a million times. i bought a viaaqua pump, a 25 gallon plastic tub, a hydrometer, a refractometer, a emperor 400, a penguin 600 powerhead, expensive decorations, and have done either 1 to 2 water changes per day throughout the cycling of the tank so nothing was ever over .50 PPM.
I was told the day she bought me the fish from a worker from WALMART that this puffer will kill everything in the tank, only eats freeze dried shrimp and should never be kept in salt of any kind, also never to net him outside of water cause o2 will get on his skin and kill him in 2 days. what a stupid SOB, i might go back to walmart and find him and kick his arse. no not really but why do ppl give such bad advise if they don't know what there talking about. i've added biospira fresh and saltwater types and it didn't help. i don't know what's up with brackish water but it seems to take longer to cycle than FW or SW? don't know

the wall mart near where i live only sells freshwater fish. as i think it should be

I think that is true of all WalMarts, but they also consider GSPs to be FW.