I pm'd Dman since he does not use NHBS to see if he has this problem. Here is the info copy/pasted with his kind permission. He replied to my pm before he read this post, and my replies to his reply are listed below:
D:
Hi Kathy,
Here's the thing, I've never used NHBS. I could never master it, it was too messy, and I HATED it, so I was grinding up CE and having terrible results with that instead.
So I can't say with any authority whether there was an increase/decrease in mouth deformities as a result.
Are the deformities consistent hatch to hatch?
K: No this is the first hatch from the same ocellaris parents that had ANY mouth deformities. I had 3 other hatches with no mouth deformities. This is also the first hatch where I introduced any Otohime (A at day 5) and they ate it very well.
D:
If it is the case it could be a result of lighting (as described below) or a genetic predisposition from one or both of the parents. i.e., one's a percula and one's an ocellaris.
Most of my gimps are a direct result of having too much light and them swimming face down on the bottom or crashing into the sides, and with my GSM's it is from aggression in small to medium sized survivals. (Maroon hatches, both white and gold with excellent survival, say 300-500 per hatch experiences far, far less deformities as a result of aggression)
K: My ocellaris do not fight! they act like they like each other. This hatch was unusually middle swimming compared to my previous hatches. They did not go to the sides until after metamorphosis. They were always swimming in the middle. I do not think it was the light or aggression.
D: I honestly canââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t see food contributing to such a physical deformity like overbite. I could see a lack of certain nutrients contributing to slow growth, but usually dry foods are administered after Meta.
K: I started them on Otohime at day 5, so that was before meta. They still had rots enriched with live phytoplankton, so I can't see how they could have grown so well, and still been nutritionally deprived. They are 5 weeks old, and about 1/2 inch long, quite uniform, and most have all the white bands.
D: Most physical deformities would normally develop during the first few days, at which point theyââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢d be on rotifers. Except extreme cases of brutal aggression from siblings after Meta, I would lean more towards genetics, rather than nutrition.
Now, Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m no where even close to being an expert on these things and I could be completely wrong and the cause could be an omega-3 DHA deficiency in the rotifers thatââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s doing it, but if that was the case, I would probably never know it as Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m not THAT smart.
K: You are smart enough for anything.
On the other hand, I did have some trouble with my phyto culture slowing down during their larval stage. I wonder if the phyto was missing something that the deficiency of which caused the deformity. That's a possibility.
I wonder if you would mind if I posted this in the forum so that other folks could weigh in?
Thanks for the reply to my questions. I really thought I knew what I was doing when I got 100 ocellaris past meta from the same hatch. I guess I still have more to learn....that's a good thing.
Cheers,
Kathy
