Introducing My Tank And Some Inhabitants.

Hi All,



and a few of the inhabitants:

Melanotaenia lacustris (male)



One of my two male platies;



And a Torpedo Barb;



The Red Tail Black Shark chewing on courgette (sorry a bit out of focus);





And Goldie, the South American Puffer (his teeth have subsequently been clipped);

i love torpedo barbs, same there so pricey...

Beautiful tank - and a great looking bunch of fish (love the Puffer - got some myself, too cute).

how do you clip a fishes teeth? lol

Very nice! What camera are you using?

Thanks for the welcome everyone <smiles>.

The camera is a Nikon D50 and the lens was the 18-70 kit lens. Had it set on manual and macro mode.

Regarding trimming the puffers teeth, very nervously <grins>. I don't know if I am allowed to post a link to another forum in here, but basically I caught the puffer and added him to a small bowl containing the aquarium water which had a few drops of clove oil mixed in. After a minute the puffer was anaethetised and I could pick him up using the net. Then I used a pair of cuticle clippers (fine, curved bladed scissors) to trim the teeth. I tell you this it was nerve wracking. I just wish Goldie would eat more damned snails. After that he was placed in another bowl of aquarium water until he had recovered enough (about 5 minutes later) to be placed back in the main tank.

If anyone had South American Puffers I recommend doing a search for the article (and feeding requirements) if they need to trim their fishes' teeth. Too much clove oil will euthanise the fish instead of knocking it out.

ttfn,

Triskele

great photos

ive often wondered about puffers teeth!

I love puffers. The barb is so good-looking. Way to go on the tank, looks amazing.

Managed to get a few more photo's of the inhabitants, including Goldie post trim (though it looks like I missed a bit);







I've been waiting weeks to get a good shot of this Synodontis petricolor

<grins> I don't think anyone dare mess with Goldie, he is really laid back but almost everyone (including the Red Tail Black Shark) gets out of his way. What I'd love to get is a shot of the Melanotaenia lacustris male during his morning display, the entire nape from his dorsal fin to his upper lip pulses a deep golden yellow when displaying to the female.

Triskele

have you got any pics of your royal whiptail

Hi Beechey,

Here's a pic of one of the Whiptails.



Triskele

fantastic pics. i'm lost as to why clipping the puffer's teeth is beneficial, though. would it bite the other fish if it had teeth? i don't know, it just reminds me of debeaking chickens: the result of good husbandry combined with poor ethics.

Hi Nospherith,

The South American Puffers teeth grow all the time unless they are worn down by diet. In the wild it crushes snails etc. and that keeps the teeth worn down. However, a combination of the South American Puffer having amongst the quickest growing teeth and mine being picky and choosy over when it will eat snails and when it won't results in the overgrown teeth.

The problem comes when the teeth get too overgrown and the puffer is no longer able to eat and starves to death. So unfortunately in this case it was essential, I left it as long as I could and Goldie was only able to take bloodworn by sucking it in the side of his mouth. So at that point I bit the bullet and clipped his teeth. He sulked for about a day, but is now able to eat properly again. In the meantime I will continue my quest to persude him to eat more snails <grins>.

As an aside, even though South American Puffers tend to be amongst the most peaceful, if they chose to they could shred probably almost any fish in my tank. So far mine has shown no signs of aggression. Other types of puffer are far more aggressive, even those cute little Dwarf Puffers <sighs>.

All the best,

Triskele.

Triskele,

That's very interesting. So it's nothing like debeaking, but simply allowing the fish to survive. It makes sense, because I remember SirMinion posting videos of his fahaka puffer, Martha, where it would just devour these snails like no other. In fact, he even wrote that Martha broke a glass heater so it could chew on the glass pieces. Well, thanks for the info.

~ Nospherith