After much personal research, I think I have come up with the cause of lockjaw in puffers and predatory fish that have a history of being fed only or large amounts of freeze dried krill. I have written a preliminary paper and presented my hypothesis to Drs Noga, Lewbart, Stoskopf and Harms at a recent Fish Health Conference. They all seem to think that I am on the "right track" and are willing to do the official research.
They are in need of deceased puffers or other predatory fish (lionfish, triggers, groupers, etc). They have to be shipped to NCSU and CAN NOT be frozen. They have to be refrigerated and shipped asap, overnight in a cooler. In addition to the necropsy, they will be doing histiopath and blood work. I will be posting all the shipping info, etc soon....if a fish dies before then, please PM me & I can get the info sooner.
Please - let's spread the word and get to the bottom of this horrible condition.
My preliminary article will be published soon - I will let all know the magazine/publication date.
Lock jaw & Krill
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.
- Puffer Queen
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Lock jaw & Krill
Kelly
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Re: Lock jaw & Krill
Looking forward to read the article.
If you haven't already I'd send this post to WetWebMedia, too. Questions about sick fish, which have been fed mainly krill occur there quite frequently and this site has lots of daily readers.
If you haven't already I'd send this post to WetWebMedia, too. Questions about sick fish, which have been fed mainly krill occur there quite frequently and this site has lots of daily readers.
Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Give a fish a man, and he'll eat for weeks.
- Pufferpunk
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Re: Lock jaw & Krill
I was just gonna say that. I can't wait to have an article to link to about 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!"
- manutius
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Re: Lock jaw & Krill
I am looking forward to this too