The Puffer Forum

Hi Everyone,

I have an approximately 3in porcupine puffer in a 90G tank. Nitrates 20, Nitrites 0, ammonia 0. This is a new puffer for us, although we are not new to puffers (we had a large porcupine puffer for about 2 years) and keep a small valentini puffer at work. Now, I know you're not supposed to do this, but we 'rescued' this puffer from a horrible pet store. I felt bad giving them business, but we felt worse leaving him there. We noticed right away that his tail is constantly held at a 45 degree angle to his body...almost like it is/was broken at some point. He does not use it to swim and instead relies upon his side fins to move him around. I was wondering first if anyone has a puffer with a 'broken' tail like this? He seems to be doing ok, he swims all over the tank looking for food but the tail is just always curled to the side, and not in a sleeping or scared kind of way. Our next concern was that sometimes when we feed him he will be doing fine but then all of a sudden he will bite at the food and his mouth will get stuck open. With the food just sitting inside of it. I've never seen this in any of our other puffers and when he is sitting like that our female clown comes and steals the food right out of his mouth. After a couple of seconds he will close his mouth again and go on looking for food but again the same thing will happen and his mouth will get stuck open again. This doesn't happen all the time but we noticed it when we first tried to feed him after bringing him home and maybe twice since then. Anyone have any ideas? I don't think its his teeth since I can see them and they look fine. Maybe lockjaw-but I've never heard of the jaws locking open?

FYI. We've had him about 1 month now. He is being fed shrimp, squid, live crabs (when we find them in the live rock), and we have some scallops, mussels in the freezer that we haven't tried yet. We've also tried peas (our last puffer LOVED them) but he hasn't shown any interest.

Sorry this is long. Thanks for any help or ideas.

I've seen a White Spotted Puffer that swam with its tail curled around it's body, and thought it was quite odd. That puffer didn't look too happy, and was likely sick.

I think I remember reading that Puffer Queen was doing some research on how Krill can potentially cause Lockjaw (and other problems) in puffers. Maybe he was being fed Krill at the pet store, and his condition degraded from there? I don't have any experience with puffers, save what I've learned on here.

Sorry I couldn't be of much use.

I agree, it could be lockjaw but I would wait on Puffer Queen to confirm it.

Funny at first it sounded like lockjaw but the diet isn't bad and it really doesn't soundlike. Are you sure he's not just yawning when he eats? The first time I saw my old porc yawn it scared me and I thought something was wrong (he actually had vibrio and died so yeah something was wrong but I caught Shelby yawn at least 3 times and she's healthy as can be)

Most puffers keep there tails at thjere sides (mainly dps) Shelby (and my old porc) do/did this on occasion but never continuous. Also they never use there tails to swim, they mainly use there side fins for that. Also what were the pet store conditions like? It's possible it had something to do with being cramped and everything.

The tail thing could be from being kept in too small of a tank at one time, cramped conditions when they are young will lead to a deformed spine.

I'd suspect lockjaw as well, or the beginning stages of it. Keep up a very healthy diet, I would even make sure you are soaking his food in vitamin treated water to hopefully reverse the process.

What are his colors like? Nice white belly or dark? Sunken belly or flat/round?

Poor little buggar.. I know we're not supposed to rescue them, but I've been there and done the same.

Hey guys,

Thanks for the responses so far. We were driving by the pet store today where we got this little guy so we went back in. I asked the people what they feed their puffers and the guy said "krill...and sometimes small fish". so I'm guessing he may have the beginning of lockjaw or something like it due to a bad diet while he was there. I'm not sure how long they had him for before we got him but thats the only thing I can think of. We bought him some crabs to eat tonight from a much better fish-only store and tried to feed him one. He came out of his rock cave all happy and looking for food, tried to bite the little crab and...got stuck. so the crab crawled out of his mouth. He recovered and went at the crab again and finally killed it but just sat there with it in his mouth. So then we thought maybe the crab and bits of food we feed him are too big (not for a normal puffer but for one with lockjaw) so we broke the crab apart to smaller pieces but still nothign. Then the poor puffer got depressed and went back to his cave. His colors are good, he isn't dark or anything and his stomach isn't sunken in. He's still able so far to eat the small bits of shrimp and other shellfish we give him most of the time. So thats good. But sometimes even when he's not being fed he swims around with his mouth stuck open. I've never seen a puffer do that before. I think we are going to try dosing the tank with some iodine incase its an iodine deficiency. Thanks for everyones help and if anyone else has any experience with this please feel free to let us know!

Definately sounds like lockjaw, due to an extended diet of krill. I would do a search here & find Puffer Queen's info about this. Be prepared for the worst & if it does die, please be sure to refirigerate the body (not freeze) & get it to her ASAP, so she can help in the curing of this very too common, horrible disease.