# Blue spotted jawfish advise



## Crayon (Apr 13, 2014)

Hey, so of all the awesome cool fish, the jawfish ranks right up there. IMO. So much so, that if the first attempts at keeping one don't succeed then ya gotta try again, right?

Attempt #1. Dead within 6 hours, cause we think he got nailed by the mantis (an unwanted hitchhiker). The jawfish was fine one minute, and then tumbling sideways like some one shot him the next.

Solution: spend more time trying to catch mantis. Btw, those traps you can get that show the mantis crawling into it.........yeah, well our mantis figured out how to get the food out of the trap with out getting caught. I watched him doing it!

We did however, finally get the mantis out. No help from the trap.

Attempt #2. Good start, great rock pile for jawfish to build home, tight lid on tank. Everything great for 2 weeks. Then heavy breathing, obvious signs of stress. Put jawfish into floating qt container and the poor guy looked like he had flesh eating disease. Gone 2 days later.

A buddy had gotten a jawfish from the same store, same time frame as us (fish came on same order), same results.

Solution: might have been sick prior to coming home. No other ideas.

Attempt #3. We have a new one right now, and this is our last try at keeping a jawfish. It's been in the tank for 3 weeks and everything looks great. Until today.

So here's the question: he's eating great, building a good house, pulling small bits of coral around his hole, defending his territory, but this afternoon, he started swimming out in the open. Perching on the sand in the corners and looking stressed, breathing hard. But then he would go back to his home and looked fine.

I know these fish like it cooler, and we generally keep the tank at 80 so yesterday we started to drop the temp to 78. All the other parameters are good. Salinity 1.025, PH 8.4, KH 9. Today, the temp was 79. Our sand bed is aragonite and we wondered if that is too rough on his skin and needs something finer. But his house is under the live rock and that's not exactly soft and cuddly!

So what are we missing? Or has anyone else had the same issues we are having? I really don't want to loose another one, and I'm not sure if we are or not, but I would like to know how other people have fared keeping jawfish and if they had to do something special for them.


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## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

They don't tend to venture far from their burrow and as you have seen, they do get VERY stressed when out in the open. IME, getting food down to them is critical and venturing out is generally characterized when they find that food isn't as plentiful as it once was and time to find a place to make a new burrow in hopes of better food availability.

Clients that have had long term success w/jawfish are the ones that feed regularly and with attention to whom needs what. I never put jawfish in systems where it's solely fed by autofeeders and there is no one to feed the "extras", ie commercial accounts.

HTH


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## Crayon (Apr 13, 2014)

Thanks. I thought I had thought of everything in my OP, and you just noted something I forgot to mention! Yes, we had wondered about feeding, so now the routine is we feed 3 or 4 times a day, and make sure we shoot mysis or bbrine right down to his hole.

We know he doesn't like pellet, but will take flake. Not so crazy about some of the other frozen foods, but variety is good!


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

When you're "spot feeding" it, do you go right up to the burrow? They won't eat it if you're scaring it by squirting the food in their face - at least not initially. when I had jawfish, they tended to be extremely shy until they were fully established, at which time they'd swim above and hang out by their hole while waiting for food to pass by. My advice would eb to tempt them out of the hole with brne or mysis (just a little so they sense to food), then get enough in the water column that they can catch and eat whenever they need.

As for the substrate, as long as you've got a little rubble in the tank, I think they're fine. If you don't have a lot of rubble in the substrate, I'd recommend getting some coarse crushed coral for them to incorporate into their burrows so they're not collapsing all the time, and they have something to cover them selves with at night.


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## Taipan (Feb 12, 2012)

+1 : Try mixing foods together when feeding that way it will sense all different types of food floating by it. Of course; try not to overfeed and pollute the system. 

The flesh eating disease you described is common among jaw fish. Watch for lesions, cuts, and scrapes. Infection can spread quickly along its body unfortunately. 

A top or mesh of some sort is also advisable. They are jumpers. Beautiful jumpers.

Good luck.


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

tried to deal with gobies, but they all die eventually. No more. leave them in the ocean

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## Crayon (Apr 13, 2014)

Taipan said:


> +1 : Try mixing foods together when feeding that way it will sense all different types of food floating by it. Of course; try not to overfeed and pollute the system.
> 
> The flesh eating disease you described is common among jaw fish. Watch for lesions, cuts, and scrapes. Infection can spread quickly along its body unfortunately.
> 
> ...


Our jawfish eats well. He actually attacks the feeding tube knowing it has food, so no fear there. And we do a variety of food in the tank cause we have a very mixed population.

No issue on jumping. We are completely covered, having lost hawks, dart gobies and wrasse in the past. I can tell you egg crate is useless as a top.

The flesh eating issue, lesions, cuts etc........what to do about that? Or is this just one of those fish as Sig says should just not be in systems cause they ain't going to thrive?


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

I don't think so - I my jawfish pretty much lived a normal lifespan in my care - and they looked pretty darn healthy too 

I'm not sure what the lesion issue might be caused by. I know the little fish appreciate little bits of rock and shells in order to brace or line the inside of their burrows to keep them from collapsing. Do you have enough rubble for it? Maybe the burrow keeps collapsing on it?

edit - wow. I just noticed your signature. You've got lots of toys!


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## [email protected] (Nov 8, 2011)

It is great to see the effort you are making so your Blue Spotted Jawfish feels at home but your water temperature is still too high. This is not a tropical fish, but a subtropical-to-temperate species that may require a chiller to keep its water at a sufficiently low temperature.
22C/72 F works best for these guys


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## Crayon (Apr 13, 2014)

[email protected] said:


> It is great to see the effort you are making so your Blue Spotted Jawfish feels at home but your water temperature is still too high. This is not a tropical fish, but a subtropical-to-temperate species that may require a chiller to keep its water at a sufficiently low temperature.
> 22C/72 F works best for these guys


Yeah, that's one of the things I had worried about, too. I had read that they could acclimate to warmer, wondered how successful it was doing that.


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## [email protected] (Nov 8, 2011)

Crayon said:


> Yeah, that's one of the things I had worried about, too. I had read that they could acclimate to warmer, wondered how successful it was doing that.


 From our experience as a reseller that rarely works on newly imported Blue Spotted Jawfish. We suggest you have the fish go through acclimation processes and become well adapted to aquarium life for at least 6 months before experimenting with higher water temperatures.

All the best.


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## Crayon (Apr 13, 2014)

*Update on blue spot jawfish*

We managed to catch the jawfish 10 days ago and move him to the 30 gal tank that only has a few very small timid fish.

It took a few days, but he has now settled in, built a sort of burrow with the coral bits (I need to get more substrate into this tank, it has less than an inch of sand) and the good news is, healed up completely. Also good, was that he never stopped eating.

So thank you to every one for their advice, I will add one more note about keeping jawfish. Our DT is 175 and has lots of fast swimmers. I think there was just too much going on, as he seemed to be constantly on the look out against everyone. Especially one yellow wrasse that seemed to have a thing for him. And the dart goby that wanted to share his burrow.


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