Valentini puffer help please

[FishAddict87]

I tried posting this issue in the new to the hobby area but noone was able to help so maybe someone here can. I have a valentini puffer who is an amazing little guy. This guy doesnt touch any of my CUC at all and eats pellets, frozen krill, mysis, and brine. My issue now is that his tooth grew huge and seems like his mouth is always open. He can still eat but i have no idea what i can do to help him? I dont want him to suffer and I tried putting some cheap snails in there (LFS said he will eat them and that will help) but he didnt show any attention to them. I even took a hit on adding a camel shrimp to see if he likes high class expensive food but he just doesnt care. What can I feed him to help him grind down his tooth? if anyone can give any advice it would be greatly appreciated. thank you in advance

 

[clowntriggerfis]

you could try live crabs not hermits normal ones

 

[FishAddict87]

I have about 10 blue legged crabs in the tank right now. my cuc consists of like 10 of those crabs, 4 misc snails from the LFS, one camel shrimp and one cleaner shrimp. I have added most of the cuc after adding the puffer and he just doesnt care about them...i guess its a good thing but a bad thing at the same time...I find myself in a pickle with this little guy right now.

 

[clowntriggerfis]

NOT hermits is what I said just normal crabs

 

[FishAddict87]

Oh no I havent...all I have to say about this guy is that it doesnt seem like he wants to eat anything thats alive. He is a beautiful fish and not aggressive what so ever. I just dont know how to help him. at night when the lights are off he goes to the top and starts bobbing up and down...there is plenty of flow in the tank and even have a hob filter for top flow so there is enough oxygen in there. I think it has to do with the tooth but idk why he is behaving this way. it kind of just started a few weeks ago when his tooth really looked much larger than normal.

 

[clowntriggerfis]

do you have live rock and does he hand feed

 

[FishAddict87]

I have about 70# of live rock and I have never tried to hand feed any of my fish...but i would like to. i just dont know how i would ever feed frozen to them by hand. flakes and pellets i can try though. i think i know where you are coming from with the hand feeding because if i could get my fish to hand feed them maybe i can get the puffer to eat something that will help grind down the teeth. what would you recommend food wise?

 

[clowntriggerfis]

thats is why I asked and it may try to were down its teeth on live rock and I am not a puffer expert but try something with a hard shell I think crabs would work good or maybe whole shrimp even though they arent supr hard shelled you can see what it says to feed puffers to where down there teeth on live aquaria. I just looked at the dog face puffers and it said to feed them hard shelled shrimp to where there teeth

 

[FishAddict87]

The only issue i would be running into is that the valentini puffer is not that big... only about 3 1/2 inches and he grows about 4 inches max... i just googled this issue and read something about using a filer to file down his tooth but i really wouldnt want to do this because i just dont trust myself. last thing i would want to do is hurt the fish. i will try to train my fish to hand feed over the next few days/weeks. thanks for your help

 

[clowntriggerfis]

your welcome but you should also get info for other and was talking about puffers in general did not know what type puffer it is but thought it was a big puffer

 

[tinctorus]

Puffers teeth will continue to grow there entire life which isthe reason they need to chew on rocks to get at crabs and other inverts as well as eating hard shell crabs and other things that help to file there teeth down

Otherwise grab that sucker and break out the dremel LOL

 

[FishAddict87]

but if i were to do something like that wouldnt it stress out the fish too much? i would assume that the puffer would puff up too...from what i'v read was that when they are puffed up they are super stressed