The Puffer Forum

So I frequently see "krill will give some species lockjaw" and people being just as upset at people feeding krill as they are about live goldfish. Is this about the lack of hard material? Is there any supporting evidence to this? What species are contained in "some species." This seems to be the prevailing urban legend in Puffer keeping and I was wondering if anyone could weigh in on this with any sort of evidence, even anecdotal.

From what I understnad it causes lockjaw in porcupine puffers when fed as a staple food and not an occasional treat. I don't know about other species.

I don't believe it's an urban legend, but a very plausible theory. If you do a google search you will see many anecdotal evidence. Puffer Queen who is a very well respected puffer expert supports this theory.

Here's a link...

http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic72164-10-1.aspx

There has been a few incidences here at TPF. It's been porcupines only (as far as I know), and if they've only been fed krill, and nothing else.

If I remember correctly, krill just doesn't really have many nutrients in it and by itself, isnt that great of a food.. that's in addition to the lockjaw issue, hence why its only suggested as an "occasional treat" type of food and not a daily, nothing else, type of food. Actually, its never recommended to feed any fish just one single food day after day, variety is always good.

I believe PufferQueen was even doing some research into it.. I wonder if she ever wrote up a paper or anything.. she doesn't get here very often.