jaw fish

[zazzoo]

i got a cheap jaw fish from j&l 4 days ago... brought him home put him in .... he went into the orange goby's hole... and never saw him since ? is he dead or alive ? or is this normal for it to hide ?

[ElGuappo]

normal for it to hide at first. should come out eventually when food is dropped in.

[zazzoo]

i hope so ... lol very nice looking with light neon blue ... would suck for it to die LOL

[Myka]

Jawfish ime can be really touchy...seem to carry lots of internal parasites. Sounds like you bought a Pearly (aka Yellow head). I have tried three, and I haven't had one make it 24 hours yet. They often arrive in poor condition in stores.

[ElGuappo]

mine was a pearly had it for quite a while. over a year anyway. till something in my tank started killing things.

[zazzoo]

yeah one i got was really healthy and FAT.... made sure he ate in the store.... then he went in my tank ... went in the goby hole and said HEY ... i guess i can DIE HERE........ LOL thats what he probably did ..... didnt see any amonenia spike so ... so far so good :D unless the crabs got him

[Myka]

:lol: Well the way you say that makes it sound funny, but I'd have to think that's probably what he did. I have found that even when they are in poor condition they are still visible as they like to know what's going on. I think you would have seen his head poking out somewhere. If it were me, I would be poking around in the hole trying to fish him out.

[Whatigot]

Jawfish ime can be really touchy...seem to carry lots of internal parasites. Sounds like you bought a Pearly (aka Yellow head). I have tried three, and I haven't had one make it 24 hours yet. They often arrive in poor condition in stores.

me too.
I love those stupid little fish but have also tried 3 with none surviving longer than 24 hours.
you just made me feel a lot better about that Myka.

[Myka]

me too.
I love those stupid little fish but have also tried 3 with none surviving longer than 24 hours.
you just made me feel a lot better about that Myka.

Really? Because I still feel bad about it! Not because I thought it was my fault (I did everything "right" for the little guys), but because I think that their little lives were stolen from the reefs for nothing. I always feel bad about fish dying.

[Whatigot]

I hate to kill anything, but I was really thinking that there must have been something I missed in the husbandry of these things.

I do feel guilty every time something in my happy little home dies, even something that is a pest.
But hearing that a reputable reefer had the same issues with the same fish makes me feel like it wasn't me who is directly responsible for its death (indirectly, for being in this hobby, sure.) and that makes me want to try another known healthy specimen.

I really do love jawfish, and in my 95 I'm building, I had originally planned a colony of them but if I cant keep one in my uber peaceful 72, I'm not going to try again in a new system I don't know inside and out.

However, hearing your experience, I just may try and find one from a fellow reefer or maybe ask JL if they can hold one (or 3) for me for a week or to before i buy.

[Myka]

Ya, I would like to have a few of them as well. The Pearly's do well in groups. I just wish they had better survival. I tihnk J&L will only hold for 3 days. Next time I get one, I will set up a QT for it with parasite medication in it from day one. Just means I will have to throw out the sand after since they can't be QT without sand, and you can't reuse sand that's been medicated. I will figure out a way to just give him a small section of sand to dig in. :D

[Whatigot]

I go to JL daily...lol
live 5 mins away.
The staff there are all really nice people so maybe I could ask really nicely and see if they'd hold as I have bought two from them in the past with it turning out as described.

Did you see the thread on here where someone build a home for a jawfish in their tank with pieces of siliconed glass?
was pretty cool and a sweet idea for if you find a healthy one to live in it.

I have strayed away from any bottom dwelling fish in the hopes that one day I'll have a jawfish to inhabit that area.
I wonder what the overall mortality rate of the yellow heads are...
might be poll worthy.

[nanoreefer]

that sucks i thought yellow heads were suposed to be pretty hardy aside from jumping, i was planning on one or two for my 75g, in fact i was going to get one at J&L but they were gone when i whent back

BTW anyone see the ring eyed jawfish at king eds for $80?

[Whatigot]

I couldn't even find a picture of one beyond a crappy hiding in his hole shot...
was it nice?

[ponokareefer]

I bought one on Boxing Day that went into my quarantine for 4 weeks, and has since been in my 125 gallon display. He does fine, even though I have 2 large tangs. I see his little head all the time. He dug a hole underneath my 15 inch clam, and both seem to be doing fine. Always comes out and eats.


that sucks i thought yellow heads were suposed to be pretty hardy aside from jumping, i was planning on one or two for my 75g, in fact i was going to get one at J&L but they were gone when i whent back

BTW anyone see the ring eyed jawfish at king eds for $80?

[Myka]

I go to JL daily...lol
live 5 mins away.
The staff there are all really nice people so maybe I could ask really nicely and see if they'd hold as I have bought two from them in the past with it turning out as described.

Did you see the thread on here where someone build a home for a jawfish in their tank with pieces of siliconed glass?
was pretty cool and a sweet idea for if you find a healthy one to live in it.

I have strayed away from any bottom dwelling fish in the hopes that one day I'll have a jawfish to inhabit that area.
I wonder what the overall mortality rate of the yellow heads are...
might be poll worthy.

I didn't see the siliconed glass one...I saw the PVC piping one. Thought that was cool, but I want my little guy to have a "natural" home. I think I might do something along the lines of the PVC piping for the QT though...

[Whatigot]

I've been thinking about this more and more and I wonder how beneficial it would be to design a natural aquascape specifically for jawfish use.
Maybe for example, a rock formation using putty placed in the tank and then covered in substrate to allow it to have somewhere to go right off the bat and then build on it from there.

I think, since I'm developing a new 95 gallon right now and want one of these finicky fish pretty bad that I'm going to try it and make a jawfish the first introduction to it.

I'll do a note on it when I do the tank journal, but I'm going to start looking for some choice rocks to work with now.

I would consider these jawfish my greatest challenge in reefing so far so it would be really sweet to keep one alive for a couple years....

[ElGuappo]

my pearly.

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq145/ElGuappo78/Jawfish3.jpg

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq145/ElGuappo78/Jawfish2-1.jpg

[Whatigot]

you're in a rsm right guap?

[zazzoo]

damn that was the one that i bought... bummer..... got to see him for only couple seconds :D

[ElGuappo]

you're in a rsm right guap?

yes.

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq145/ElGuappo78/JawfishHome2.jpg

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq145/ElGuappo78/JawfishHome3.jpg

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq145/ElGuappo78/TankFront12.jpg

[zazzoo]

wow hes nice looking.. i think ima bout to go get me one and try again :D

[Whatigot]

anyone had one in an open top setting for any amount of time?
I know they are jumpers, but so are ALL my fish and I've only had one confirmed jumper so far,.

[scumchug]

I have two of them for over a year now. No problems what so ever. They originally made their homes about 12 inches apart. There was a constant battle until one moved to the other end of the tank. Now they don't see each other everything's fine. I would suggest a closed top tank. Every once in a while they like to break the surface. I have a canopy so they have never jumped, but i'm pretty sure if I didn't they would be dead a long time ago. Both of mine use empty shells to construct their burrows. They dig out the sand and place the shells to form tunnels so the sand doesn't fall back into the hole.