jaw fish
 

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 ?

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

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

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.

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

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

: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.

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.

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.