Amazon Puffer Needs Operation. Advice?

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probably best just leaving it alone to recover that chasing it round with a net. just extra stress for no point
 
probably best just leaving it alone to recover that chasing it round with a net. just extra stress for no point
He's got a good point there. Let us know how it goes.
 
probably best just leaving it alone to recover that chasing it round with a net. just extra stress for no point
He's got a good point there. Let us know how it goes.
from ten pm last night. its now 3pm uk time. the puffer is looking fine. still alive, active and alert. i shal feed him soon! il update in a week, thanks guys :)
 
That's great news. Perhaps next time use less anesthetic. For my marine puffer, the Toby, since he's a larger fish, I actually didn't use any anesthetic. I learned a new technique of using very wet, not sticking cloth to wrap him gently in. This held the body down and since I was so much quicker at it the thing was done in a moment and he was back in the tank munching. Not sure this would work with small puffers as it's harder to manage them safely that way. Also for anyone with large puffers reading this...this method is NOT for them...only for smaller species. Large puffers will require this be done at a specialist or a vet as their teeth require an electric tool to grind them down.
 
That's great news. Perhaps next time use less anesthetic. For my marine puffer, the Toby, since he's a larger fish, I actually didn't use any anesthetic. I learned a new technique of using very wet, not sticking cloth to wrap him gently in. This held the body down and since I was so much quicker at it the thing was done in a moment and he was back in the tank munching. Not sure this would work with small puffers as it's harder to manage them safely that way. Also for anyone with large puffers reading this...this method is NOT for them...only for smaller species. Large puffers will require this be done at a specialist or a vet as their teeth require an electric tool to grind them down.
yeah i think i used too much clove oil also. it only took 5 seconds for it to go belly up and 2 minutes for it to move again. its way too small to be handled like that im afraid otherwise i would have tried it :)
 
Hopefully you won't have to do this again by trying the feeding tricks listed above it should take care of it. The food in the rock trick works great.
 
Hopefully you won't have to do this again by trying the feeding tricks listed above it should take care of it. The food in the rock trick works great.
i have this puffer in my comm tank so not sure the rock thing will be effective. defo more snails from now on! thanks once again
 
Well done for doing the job!! Few people are brave enough!! So many times I ave had to bodge it for customers puffers and warn them of the risks and thank goodness i've not lost one yet!!

I had a customer with a 2ft Mbu puffer that they had to call a vet out for yearly and cost them £400 every time for them to file its teeth down!! :eek:
 
! That's a lot of money. We have a LFS here that does it using veterinary methods so if I had a huge puffer I would take it to them. People always ask me why I don't just feed it the right things but they don't understand that puffers are like people and don't always do what we tell them to do!
 
Puffers are finnicky and personally, I detest the idea of giving a puffer snails unless i had a reliable and sterile colony of them breeding myself!! They carry far too many parasites and for too little benefit...

But for fish like a lot of the bigger marine puffers and the Mbus, you just can replicate the ammount of grazing on hard stuff in a tank, being captive knocks out their need to nose around and pick up stones and crunch more difficult foods when they get it all served up on a plate!

My absolute favourite is my baby Mbu at work (we have a35cm one as well who will eat 1kg of frozen food every 7-10 days! and the only stuff he wont touch is stuff in shells lol but his teeth are great). But the baby puffer is blind as a bat! When I started a year ago in the shop i'm in, he was in that godawful emaciated state that makes me feel sick! It wasnt that he didnt have food though... just... im more observant than some!

Even then... took a week lol! Only when i went to pick out old food that the puffer nearly took my fingers off to get food as it passed him and offering him a bit more by poking him in the face with it... he ate and ate and ate! at 8cm long.. he ate 4 whole bits of muscle! A year later he is 15cm and will eat food off the floor if no other fish are there, though does take him ages to find it. He reacts to shadows and if i tap the glass right next to the food, he reacts to the vibrations and follows it to the food and then stuffs his face.

Dont know what we will do with him :( He needs real TLC and thats for a fidh that is seriously intensive in care already!! Such a shame!! He is called Mr Puffles lol. Had to do his teeth when I first saw him in the top corner tank in the dark with his teeth way too long... he is already too big to do that again but thankfully, he likes cockle in shell as well.
 
Snail shells are also normally not enough to wear down the teeth of any but the smallest of puffer.
 
Well my puffer died today. Seemed fine then all of a sudden... Dead! I wont be replacing him :/
 
That's a shame. Sorry to hear that. Puffers are a more difficult fish to keep as they have special needs.
 
That's a shame. Sorry to hear that. Puffers are a more difficult fish to keep as they have special needs.
ive realised that. kept him alive for a year or so in my comm tank.if i ever have a puffer again it will be a specialist set up for sure :)
 

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