Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32773
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Chicago
- Contact:
Re: Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
What kind of puffer is this & why do you think it has lockjaw?
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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fishologist43
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2011 4:20 pm
- Location (country): united states
Re: Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
he is a porcupine puffer about 7 inches in a 120 gallon tank with 65 gallon sump. I think he has lock jaw because i just fed the tank today and he wanted to eat but it seemed like he couldnt open his mouth like he usually does. he did eat a normal amount of food but it was obviously difficult for him. i have had him for two years and have always kept a close eye on his beak so i know what it should look like and it looks normal. I still need to test the water to make sure thats not part of the problem. I have been looking for my test kit all day and just found it so i will do that soon and post the results. but for right now my carpet anemone looks great and he is always the first one to show signs if the chemistry is off so it should be fine. puffer is also showing no other signs of illness. his eyes and skin are clear and he is acting like his normal self.
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Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32773
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Chicago
- Contact:
Re: Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
When you get your parameters tested, please start a new thread on this.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
-
fishologist43
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2011 4:20 pm
- Location (country): united states
Re: Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
ammonia: 0ppm
nitrite:0ppm
nitrate:5ppm
ph:8.4ppm
salinity:1.023
nitrite:0ppm
nitrate:5ppm
ph:8.4ppm
salinity:1.023
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Nuclear_Glitter
- Fahaka Puffer
- Posts: 971
- Joined: Sun May 29, 2011 1:03 am
- Gender: Female
- Location (country): North Carolina, USA
- Location: North Carolina, USA
Re: Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
go to
go to the hospital forum and click "New Thread" at the top so you can get help faster.fishologist43 wrote:ammonia: 0ppm
nitrite:0ppm
nitrate:5ppm
ph:8.4ppm
salinity:1.023
"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." -- Henry Ford
-
Pufferpunk
- Queen Admin
- Posts: 32773
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
- Gender: Female
- My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Chicago
- Contact:
Re: Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
Or just follow the instructions in the 1st post of this thread. 
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
Re: Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
Dont have a picture handy, but here's what i used...
A 5+ml syringe (it came with some Aiptasia-X for use as an applicator). I removed the metal pointy part at the end, there is a plastic coupling underneath it.
(just an FYI, insulin syringe's are WAY too small, so dont try them).
I shoved a 6" length of normal airline tubing onto the coupling and it made a fairly tight fit.
I thawed some frozen food with a little tank water and some liquid vitamins and slurped some up with my ad-hoc feeding tube.
Thats what I used. Also, from experience, stick the whole feeding tube setup in water prior to sucking up food with it, the rubber stopper in the syringe gets dry/worn from use
and it will last a whole lot longer if its wet when you use it.....yanking up on the plunger when the rubber is dry/worn is a good way to scrap that syringe.
Hope that helps you!
A 5+ml syringe (it came with some Aiptasia-X for use as an applicator). I removed the metal pointy part at the end, there is a plastic coupling underneath it.
(just an FYI, insulin syringe's are WAY too small, so dont try them).
I shoved a 6" length of normal airline tubing onto the coupling and it made a fairly tight fit.
I thawed some frozen food with a little tank water and some liquid vitamins and slurped some up with my ad-hoc feeding tube.
Thats what I used. Also, from experience, stick the whole feeding tube setup in water prior to sucking up food with it, the rubber stopper in the syringe gets dry/worn from use
and it will last a whole lot longer if its wet when you use it.....yanking up on the plunger when the rubber is dry/worn is a good way to scrap that syringe.
Hope that helps you!
-
fishologist43
- Puffer Fry
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2011 4:20 pm
- Location (country): united states
Re: Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
thanks for the help. so far he is still able to eat if i cut the pieces small enough so hopefully i wont have to force feed 
Re: Pufferfish Lockjaw - Cured
I had a 125 gallon tank with clown trigger/ porcupine puffer/queen angelfish/maroon clown/ and snowflake ell. All very healthy. Bought 300 gallon tank and made sure I put some water from old tank in new and the same with filter media. Then fish. week later introduced long nose wrasse/koran angel/batfish/and a spotted sweetlips. All fish were doing fine except batfish. harassed. then 3 weeks later turn lights on and long nose wrasse has a heart attack and dies on the spot. couple days later koran angel dies for no apparent reason. week later batfish dies of what I would call stress due to harassment. Water chemistry was fine only thing else is refugium macro algae died 12 hrs light on. NEXT IS THE BIGGEST, MY BELOVED PORCUPINE PUFFER WAS NOT EATING AND IS STILL NOT EATING. sWIMS UP AND DOWN TANK LOOKS FINE. LOOKS AT FOOD AND SOMETIMES SUCKS IT IN AND SPITS IT BACK OUT. tHIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR ABOUT 4 WEEKS NOW. THOUGHT IT WAS HIS TEETH. NETTED HIM AND USED A SIDE CUTTER AND CUT TOP POINT OFF. HE DIDN'T LIKE THAT PUFFED!!. DOSING WITH IODINE THINKING LOCKJAW NOW. also TOOK ADVICE FROM OTHER POST AND MIXING UP SHRIMP VITAMIN SOLUTION AND TUBE FEEDING HIM -- NEVER PUFFS, BUT SEEMS TO SPIT BACK OUT EVEN THOUGH I GO 3 " DOWN HIS THROT. STILL A HAPPY CAMPER WHEN I CAOME HOME , SO I CAN'T GIVE UP. ALL OTHER FISH HAVE BEEN PERFECTLY FINE SINCE BATFISH DIED. DID 2 WATER CHANGES ALREADY. I WONDER IF HE HAS PARASITE , BUT I THINK OTHER FISH WOULD BE EFFECTED? IF ANYONE HAS ANY OTHER ADVICE IT WOULOD BE MUCH APPRECIATED. tHANK YOU SCOTT