My puffers teeth may be too long

[Odd Duck]

I’m very concerned you’re seeing this at such a young age.  It makes me think of bird or turtle / tortoise beaks if the baby is born with a deformity or develops one quickly because of injury, improper diet, or mal-alignment.  For them we are able to access the beak and take some corrective actions with trimming, brace-type apparatus to encourage realignment, etc.  For such a small fish, I don’t think it’s likely you’ll be able to do a trim, so offering snails or other somewhat hard shelled food is likely to be the only thing that will help.

If you don’t already have a Neocaridinia davidii colony in the tank, I would get one started right away.  Even a 1” fish should be able to eat shrimplets and thereby get some food that needs more chewing action to trigger more wear.  In the right conditions and with enough moss, fine plants, or rock stacks / caves to hide, the shrimp colony can still thrive providing a potential life time supply of snacks for the puffer.  With adding the snails, that’s probably the best you can do.  If you’re interested DM me.  I can send you some of my small snails that don’t appear to be as invasive as MTS, stay smaller, work the substrate, and have harder shells than bladders or rams.

Correcting diet on rabbits and guinea pigs or other small mammals will often correct a tendency toward excessively sharp points on the teeth from mild malocclusions, but if the wear surfaces don’t line up at all correctly, there is nothing that prevents issues but regular trimming or extractions of the offending poorly aligned teeth.  Same for the beaks of birds and turtles / tortoises.  If you can’t trim, you have to take steps to trigger more wear.  If there is no way to trigger more wear, there is nothing that can be done to fix the problem.

As a last ditch effort, if you can catch the fish and hold it, you can try getting it to grasp a folded corner of a piece of fine grit emory paper, then pull it out so it sands the wear surface slightly each time it bites.  Repeat a time or 2, then put the fish back into a cup of tank water and observe.  Repeat until it can close its mouth better.  Might take a few tries to get it there.  I don’t know of any tool that you can get that is both strong enough and small enough to get in such a tiny mouth but still be effective for trimming.

[Gannon]

On 8/23/2024 at 10:28 PM, Odd Duck said:

I’m very concerned you’re seeing this at such a young age.  It makes me think of bird or turtle / tortoise beaks if the baby is born with a deformity or develops one quickly because of injury, improper diet, or mal-alignment.  For them we are able to access the beak and take some corrective actions with trimming, brace-type apparatus to encourage realignment, etc.  For such a small fish, I don’t think it’s likely you’ll be able to do a trim, so offering snails or other somewhat hard shelled food is likely to be the only thing that will help.

If you don’t already have a Neocaridinia davidii colony in the tank, I would get one started right away.  Even a 1” fish should be able to eat shrimplets and thereby get some food that needs more chewing action to trigger more wear.  In the right conditions and with enough moss, fine plants, or rock stacks / caves to hide, the shrimp colony can still thrive providing a potential life time supply of snacks for the puffer.  With adding the snails, that’s probably the best you can do.  If you’re interested DM me.  I can send you some of my small snails that don’t appear to be as invasive as MTS, stay smaller, work the substrate, and have harder shells than bladders or rams.

Correcting diet on rabbits and guinea pigs or other small mammals will often correct a tendency toward excessively sharp points on the teeth from mild malocclusions, but if the wear surfaces don’t line up at all correctly, there is nothing that prevents issues but regular trimming or extractions of the offending poorly aligned teeth.  Same for the beaks of birds and turtles / tortoises.  If you can’t trim, you have to take steps to trigger more wear.  If there is no way to trigger more wear, there is nothing that can be done to fix the problem.

As a last ditch effort, if you can catch the fish and hold it, you can try getting it to grasp a folded corner of a piece of fine grit emory paper, then pull it out so it sands the wear surface slightly each time it bites.  Repeat a time or 2, then put the fish back into a cup of tank water and observe.  Repeat until it can close its mouth better.  Might take a few tries to get it there.  I don’t know of any tool that you can get that is both strong enough and small enough to get in such a tiny mouth but still be effective for trimming.

I am 22 lol don’t worry but I do love my animals very much so it is a stressful thing. I’ll do my very best with this and keep you all updated.

[Tony s]

On 8/23/2024 at 11:28 PM, Odd Duck said:

Correcting diet on rabbits and guinea pigs or other small mammals will often correct a tendency toward excessively sharp points on the teeth from mild malocclusions, but if the wear surfaces don’t line up at all correctly,

Completely off topic. We have a relatively young holland lop whose teeth line up perfectly bottom directly under tops. Perfect smile! Unfortunately, they’re not supposed to. Almost got a dq at country fair. Anything we could do for him. He’s such a sweetheart. When put on the bed for attention, he flops down and spreads out for attention 😂

sorry for a bit of a hijack @Gannon

[Gannon]

On 8/23/2024 at 10:41 PM, Tony s said:

Completely off topic. We have a relatively young holland lop whose teeth line up perfectly bottom directly under tops. Perfect smile! Unfortunately, they’re not supposed to. Almost got a dq at country fair. Anything we could do for him. He’s such a sweetheart. When put on the bed for attention, he flops down and spreads out for attention 😂

sorry for a bit of a hijack @Gannon

No worries at all! It’s all relevant to the themes of the post! Relevant enough for me anyways.

And yeah @Odd Duck I might have to take you up on that offer or the snails! Might be cool to have around in their own right too!

[Odd Duck]

On 8/23/2024 at 10:32 PM, Gannon said:

I am 22 lol don’t worry but I do love my animals very much so it is a stressful thing. I’ll do my very best with this and keep you all updated.

I was referring to the young age of your fish!  😉 😃 

[Gannon]

On 8/24/2024 at 9:58 AM, Odd Duck said:

I was referring to the young age of your fish!  😉 😃 

My bad! Long day probably wasn’t reading everything thoroughly! And I got him a bit over a year ago, so unfortunately haven’t had him too long to this point.

[Odd Duck]

On 8/23/2024 at 10:41 PM, Tony s said:

Completely off topic. We have a relatively young holland lop whose teeth line up perfectly bottom directly under tops. Perfect smile! Unfortunately, they’re not supposed to. Almost got a dq at country fair. Anything we could do for him. He’s such a sweetheart. When put on the bed for attention, he flops down and spreads out for attention 😂

sorry for a bit of a hijack @Gannon

Sometimes it can be helped by adjusting the angle on the teeth.  The back of the uppers need to be filed angling inward as it goes up and the front side of the lowers will need to be filed angling outward as it goes down.  This is the only way to correct that and it usually takes several careful filings in a row (about every 4 to 6 weeks under anesthesia each time to get it right).  The idea is that they will slide past each other instead of meeting too flat.  When the teeth meet too perfectly square on, they don’t work against each other just right and the occlusal surface will get blunted.  If you can get them to slide past each other they will push against each other just a little and gradually encourage the teeth into a slightly better position (like what braces do).  If that’s done in a young rabbit, it has a decent chance of working, especially with such a slight malocclusion.  Not as likely to work in an older rabbit but it’s possible.

If there was a known fall and the rabbit has other exceptional desirable traits, the rabbit could be bred once to see if it’s a trait that’s passed on.  If it is a genetic defect from birth it could be passed on to offspring so the rabbit should never be bred.

Edited August 24 by Odd Duck
Clarify

[Tony s]

On 8/24/2024 at 11:07 AM, Odd Duck said:

If it is a genetic defect from birth it could be passed on to offspring so the rabbit should never be bred

We believe it is genetic. Filing may work if it becomes an issue. He’s probably a year old by now. Was bought for 4-h project and usually they get sold. But my daughter isn’t having any of that. We have another male broken mini lop we might breed. But not set up for that now. Both are really good pets. 

[Odd Duck]

On 8/24/2024 at 12:31 PM, Tony s said:

We believe it is genetic. Filing may work if it becomes an issue. He’s probably a year old by now. Was bought for 4-h project and usually they get sold. But my daughter isn’t having any of that. We have another male broken mini lop we might breed. But not set up for that now. Both are really good pets. 

If his teeth meet exactly, he may not ever have an issue from it.  Just monitor them close and take him to somebody that truly knows what they’re doing with teeth trims so they can make adjustments, not just trim for length.  They need to be carefully filed at the correct angles, not just cut off like some do that think they know how to do rabbits.  Makes me a a bit crazy that even vets who claim to do some rabbit stuff are still using nail trimmers to cut off overgrown incisors without ever checking the cheek teeth.  High risk of cracking the teeth and they can crack right up into the gums - big no no.  For most rabbits, cavies (Guinea pigs), or chinchillas, front teeth issues are actually transference from cheek teeth issues.  This happens to be one of my pet peeves with vets who only dabble in exotics.

I appreciate their willingness to try, but it needs to be done right, not done wrong.

[Tony s]

On 8/24/2024 at 2:22 PM, Odd Duck said:

They need to be carefully filed at the correct angles, not just cut off like some do that think they know how to do rabbits

Sorry wrong terminology. And I wouldn’t attempt it anyway. Needs anesthesia. I can do some minor emergency surgery. But definitely not on rabbits. Just large animals in lots of trouble. Mostly prolapse and hernia repair. I don’t think he’ll probably have problems with it. But definitely not breeding material. 

On 8/24/2024 at 2:22 PM, Odd Duck said:

This happens to be one of my pet peeves with vets who only dabble in exotics.

Yeah. Out here you mostly find good farm vets. Technically he probably should have been stew. But absolutely no way. Teaching the wrong lesson here. These animals were meant to be livestock. But… just… no. Large animals are different. A 500 lb hog or 2000 lb cow is completely different than a4 lb bunny. Especially one that’s had so much attention. 

[Gannon]

Alright update. Fasting him didn’t work and now he’s having even more trouble eating just bloodworms. He cleverly presses his face on the glass to get it down past his teeth. I feel so awful for him. I don’t think I’m capable but I have to try something this is just cruel to him.

 

On 8/23/2024 at 1:30 PM, MAC said:

I've had my "Red eye Red tail' irrubesco puffers for 4 years now and they were pretty close to full grown size when I got them so no telling how old they are. 

I had also heard they didn't have the teeth issues common with other puffers. Still, I tried to introduce a variety of foods, but in my experience they never really showed much interest in eating live snails and even live with a colony of 'wild type' neocaridina.

A few month or so ago I noticed the female puffer was not eating aggressively as usual. Looking closer I thought I could see her "teeth" filling most of her mouth area. After time she was unable to eat at all, trying to slurp in mosquito larva, nothing made it into her mouth. 

Now I could see that teeth, or beak, or cartilage, or whatever it is, was blocking her whole mouth. 

I concluded a tooth trim was required. And I was very nervous to attempt it. I watched and read as much as I could about the procedure and eventually followed the directions from dansfish. 

I can attest from first hand experience these fish can need their teeth trimmed. I trimmed a little from the top and bottom, with the bottom 'tooth' being much larger than the top. 

I've included a screenshot from a video I took awhile back that is the best reference I have for what I began noticing with the overgrowth of tooth. 

Best of luck with your puffers.  

Edit: forgot to mention, after trimming the teeth the puffer has been able to eat normally again and shows no ill effects. 

 

Can you give me some advice on how you did this? I think I’m out of other options. 😞

[Gannon]

Update, I found a vet that has done this before on similarly sized fish!

[Tony s]

Well that’s a relief. I’m not sure… okay, scratch that. There’s no way I could trust myself to sedate her and do that.

[Gannon]

On 9/10/2024 at 9:59 PM, Tony s said:

Well that’s a relief. I’m not sure… okay, scratch that. There’s no way I could trust myself to sedate her and do that.

I just have to have a solid plan how I’ll keep his teeth down in the future, and especially if I get more. He’s always been very aggressive but I still want to try to get him friends since they can be social.

The downsides to the vet are $125-150, moving stress to the vet, and it might be better to have experience doing this in that case, but I just don’t feel terribly comfortable. Thoughts?

[Tony s]

On 9/10/2024 at 11:02 PM, Gannon said:

The downsides to the vet are $125-150, moving stress to the vet, and it might be better to have experience doing this in that case, but I just don’t feel terribly comfortable

Worth every penny. And maybe you can see how to do it next time. Hopefully they can help you get a plan to keep it in shape afterwards. That’s sometimes worth the vet visit by itself. It’s either that, or you’re going to have to take them all in when he gets friends. 

[Gannon]

On 9/10/2024 at 10:34 PM, Tony s said:

Worth every penny. And maybe you can see how to do it next time. Hopefully they can help you get a plan to keep it in shape afterwards. That’s sometimes worth the vet visit by itself. It’s either that, or you’re going to have to take them all in when he gets friends. 

That’s true! I just need to find something they’ll eat or chew on. It feels like very bad natural design that they eat like pea puffers but have growing teeth! Not sure what will thoroughly address it.

[Gannon]

Alright. I went to the vet and they were awesome. Problem is, my puffer’s teeth are actually uneven and also at different angles. They think it has to do with a bone deformity in the upper jaw. In which case, there’s nothing they can do. This would be from age, genetics, or physical trauma.

They don’t want to cut the teeth, they’re long, but not overly long and he wanted to avoid cutting soft tissue at all cost, so if nothing improves with feeding though a syringe, we may try that. 
 

Very unfortunate update. but sometimes that’s how it is. I’ll keep you all updated but not terribly optimistic. 
 

One fun detail is they said he was the angriest puffer they’d ever had which is funny. Wish/hope I can have him around a few years longer to enjoy that puffer fury but sometimes that’s not in the cards. We’ll see.

[Tony s]

On 9/12/2024 at 6:14 PM, Gannon said:

One fun detail is they said he was the angriest puffer they’d ever had which is funny

Well, he has every right to be ticked. He was made wrong. 😁  we have a rabbit the same way. He has perfectly aligned teeth. Rabbit teeth are not supposed to be lined up. They are supposed to have overbites. Oh we, we still take care of our pets the best we can. 😁