The Puffer Forum

Do puffers have the habit of chew on small stones/pebbles to wear down their own teeth? Birdy is doing this everyday. One of my ex gsp display the this same behaviour too. Guess I am in luck!

I have some porous rock that is always crawling with snails. I notice the puffers working hard trying to extract the snails. And prolly shearing some teeth.....

I have heard before of this behaviour but not seen it much myself. My fahaka does this sometimes (rarely) so yes, I think you may be lucky. Keep up the crunchy foods tho, I know you will.

I've seen numerous species of puffers nibbling on rocks. I assume it is to wear down their teeth, much like a hamster gnawing on wood sticks.

my GSP's have done this when i was keeping them. never my F8 though. i mentioned it on here and it was thought that they either would see pods that they tried to eat on the live rock, or he was performing his own dentistry. either way i still provided a heavily shelled diet and never had the slightest bit of over growth on my GSP

I actually witnessed this happening a lot when I first introduced my GSP's to the tank. They would chew on pebbles or bite down and "flinch" themselves on some dead coral rock that I got real cheap at the LFS. It was the most unique thing I had ever seen a fish do. I threw in some small snails to make their habits more rewarding.