[nikkipigtails]

I haven't looked into getting a BSJF for the very reason stated in your Discussion. I have no intention of trying to keep a fish that has such a poor success rate in a home aquarium.

As far as the ingestion of worms or parasites or inadequate shipping and handling are concerned, it seems much more likely that a combination of blockages in the intestinal tract and the ingestion of parasites are to blame for BSJF death especially if the BSJF has BSJF Disease before death. The very nature of the BSJF makes intestinal blockages more possible. After reading your study, your Conclusion also makes me wonder about the differences in sand consistency in the home aquarium compared to the BSJF's natural habitat. I've had several "sensitive" fish shipped in poor conditions and thrive in my home aquarium. Do you think it's possible that if the BSJF ingests a parasite and the intestine is partially or completely blocked by sand, it gives the parasite a better opportunity to infect the BSJF before being passed through the digestive tract? The white spots noted in BSJF Disease could be cysts filled with parasitic offspring. Perhaps a better sand-sifting CUC is necessary to keep the sand the BSJF burrows in free, or free-er, of parasites or worms. Of course, many more dissections would be necessary to see a pattern. Did the fish you dissected appear to have "BSJF Disease"?