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hey guys,with my larger flowerhorns,sometimes i will run my cleaning magnet around the tank and let them chase it and bash it up,when they srike at it,they make this like thuding sound against the magnet,strong enuff for me to easly feel and here it throo 10mm glass,well i was wondering can they break there teeth hitting it this so hard,or maybe there jaw,if some teeth were to get broken,would they grown new onesalso ive herd that if a fish does break its jaw,they starve to death,is this true?i ask because sometimes they really srike it hard,and if its going to start hurting them,then ill find some other way to play with em.....

Flowerhorns are pretty tough and do have quite a bite, so there is a potential for self injury against a solid object. A jaw injury is most serious, yes, fish with a broken jaw can rarely be saved though a large flowerhorn might be just large enough for a vet to be able to do something in the way of corrective surgery, but I imagine the bill from that work would be staggering. More of a likely scenario than an outright jaw preakage would be lip erosion, and while most large cichlids heal well from peripheral tissue damage to the lips, theres always a chance infection could take hold, and again, that could prove problematic, not to mention costly to treat.

Best thing is to avoid the situation, try feeding the fish at the same time as giving the glass a scrape, so they are distracted from their innate territorially , and less worried about things moving about in their territorial area. If you want to provide enrichment for them, try to do it with in-cage decor rather than by stimulating an aggressive response from them, its much safer.

Being a meanie that I am, Lol, a flowerhorn may want a potential nest area or display area "just so", so I irritate them by putting stuff in their area that they will want to move, or rearrange the gravel. Gives them something to do, getting things back the way they want it.

yeah she is quite nasty,but playfull too, if you know what i mean,i think i mite just get one of those long handels,with the sponge on the end,then and scrap the magnet all together,cause ive tryed to do the distraction thing,with heaps of different ways,food,a mirror,i tryed the net in with her,i even tried scaring her,but as soon as the magnet moves,she turns into terminator modeshe really loves to hate it,even her colours go dark,then you can see her black stripesalso longhair as you would know,fh can hurt them self when dishing out aggression,do you think she is capable of hitting it hard enuff to break her jaw or hurt her lips or whatevaalso i like doing what yu said about moving gravel back,and plants and stuff,sometimes it can go on for weeks,ill move her plant over therethen that night ill here her moving it back,and shifting gravel back to how she likes itbut cause she getting so big now,her mouth is like a bulldozer scoop,and when she moves gravel she moves gravel,i see her spit out huge mouthfulls,i mite go and do that now actully