Blue Spot Jawfish - 3rd time the charm?

[ThRoewer]

How far are those guys apart from each other?
Did you ever noticed that they swap burrows? That's the trouble I have with my two, likely because the female is larger than the male.

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[Chad Vossen]

They started out spread out, but in the beginning they would steal burrows. This is what caused them to all end up in the same corner. After getting it's burrow stolen, it would just start a new burrow 10 inches away. They have stabilized finally, however I have seen them accidentally dive into the wrong hole, which results in some arguing.

Here's one that I suspect is a female. Also my most active digger of the 3.

[ThRoewer]

Yes, that's a gravid female.

[Chad Vossen]

Gotta share a jawfish feeding video.

[CoralsAddiction]

Have they been raised in captivity on a larger commercial scale?

[ThRoewer]

Originally Posted by CoralsAddiction

Have they been raised in captivity on a larger commercial scale?

Not that I know of.

[ThRoewer]

My two are still alive despite a serious deal of neglect (feeding only once in a while - 1 to 2 times a week). Once acclimated these guys are really hardy.
But I have more and more doubts that they actually like cooler water. During the colder months when the tank temperatures dropped to 16 °C they basically hibernated - closed their burrows for days and hardly ever came out. And now that it is warmer again they are out all day. The temperature range I've had them so far was from 16 °C to 30 °C.
But while they can handle lower temperatures (my pipefish and the Eyebrow blennies couldn't) they clearly prefer it warmer. At the higher end they actually did very well.

My next project is to upgrade them to a taller tank - one thing they clearly want is at least 4" of gravel.

[alton]

Glad yours are doing well. Mine is happy go lucky, I think the 75 degrees F is a big plus. I believe I lost my first one in my office to the dreaded white disease due to having MH lighting at the time and my tank getting over 80 in the summer?

[ThRoewer]

The one thing I find interesting with my two is that the male is now always in mating coloration. It started when I dropped the salinity for ich treatment.
I still haven't bought the salinity all the way back up yet so the coloration may have to do with that.
If this is not just an individual quirk of my male but rather a general reaction to low salinity then it might be a good way to sex them.

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[Blue spot]

Hi th realy enjoyed reading your thread and full of great information . Trying to keep blue spots myself in a reef environment, had some success and some failures so found your experience realy helpful . Cheers

[chris8232]

Five months,keep @ 76°, gobbles up large krill and lfr. Mouths any fish by the burrow besides the clowns. What do you think male or female?

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[ThRoewer]

I would say it's a male. Females are darker in the front.

[chris8232]

Thanks definitely my favorite fish buy

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[RAJOD]

Originally Posted by ThRoewer

I gave it another shot with Blue Spot Jawfish (LA had a killer 42% off deal on them)

My first 2 attempts failed:

First two from LFS: male died of BSJD, female jumped into the quarter sized opening of a EHEIM surface skimmer while in antibiotics treatment.

Second two from LiveAquaria: both died hours after I got them.

You are throwing your money out the window. There is somethign wrong with your tank that you have to treat it. Start off with cheaper jawfish, and see if you can get it to live.

You need to have prestine water parameters. Get that tank in order before send more fish to the toilet.

Third two from LiveAquaria: Looking good so far. They arrived without any visible symptoms of disease. Also, from the looks of it, it seems LA (QM actually) got it right with picking a male and a female by my instructions. So far no aggression.
Despite enough space in the QT and initially taking shelter in another prebuild burrow, the smaller one (female) decided to move and build her burrow underneath the (small) rock where the large one (male) made his burrow and seemingly he didn't mind it.



Now it's to hope that they don't get sick ... or would it be better to dose the tank with CP prophylactically?

[fisk and chips]

By far my favorite fish!!

[ThRoewer]

Originally Posted by RAJOD

You are throwing your money out the window. There is somethign wrong with your tank that you have to treat it. Start off with cheaper jawfish, and see if you can get it to live.

You need to have prestine water parameters. Get that tank in order before send more fish to the toilet.

It was never an issue with the tank or water parameters but rather with the fish already being sick when I got them.
The issue with these is how they are treated during capture, transport and at the wholesalers. Usually the damage is done there.
Once acclimated these guys are as hardy as it gets. My last two are still around and doing well.

And while these guys tolerate cooler water they don't seem to like it much. During the winter months when the tank was at around 16 °C they stayed in their closed-off burrows all day and didn't even come out for food. Now that it's getting warmer they have become more active again. On the other hand they handled 30 °C last fall just fine.

[RAJOD]

Originally Posted by ThRoewer

It was never an issue with the tank or water parameters but rather with the fish already being sick when I got them.
The issue with these is how they are treated during capture, transport and at the wholesalers. Usually the damage is done there.
Once acclimated these guys are as hardy as it gets. My last two are still around and doing well.

And while these guys tolerate cooler water they don't seem to like it much. During the winter months when the tank was at around 16 °C they stayed in their closed-off burrows all day and didn't even come out for food. Now that it's getting warmer they have become more active again. On the other hand they handled 30 °C last fall just fine.

I hope the new ones live. How long you had them in the tank?

I only buy from a in town dealer not online. Then you take more of risk.
Find one that has been in the store for awhile then you have an idea if its sick or not. Did you get a full refund on the sick ones?

[ThRoewer]

I got them since last March, so over a year now.
The first ones were bought at a store here but I only noticed that they were sick when I got them home under better light. No refund for those.
The ones I got first from LA arrived in such bad shape that they didn't even last 8 hours. For those I got a full refund.
My current two also came from LA and arrived healthy.

[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

Thanks, all for this thread. I'm thinking of keeping one or another species of jawfish, and have a housekeeping question- how do you do your sandbeds? Usually on the net people recommend very fine oolitic sand for a DSB (at least after the first inch or two), but that thin sand reportedly does't work well for jawfish's dens. I also notice, in many photos and videos as well as writeups, that they like playing with rock rubble, shells and the like, and it seems that whatever you make the sandbed out of you should put a good amount of those on top.

What size sand do you use? Do you mix sizes, and if so what formula? Finally, how do you keep it clean/keep away dead zones (if you do so at all)?

[ThRoewer]

The jawfish tank is my most neglected tank - and the cleanest. The fish, pods and bacteria do all the work. The tank has a skimmer, but it hardly skims anything.

As for the sand bed, you want to place a few rocks (Real Reef Live Rock is pretty good for this but regular live rock or even halved ceramic flowerpots are fine) on the ground to give the fish some caves to dig out. Then you fill in the gravel and sand.
1/4 to 1/3 should be extra coarse coral gravel (basically broken and rounded off coral sticks). This is what they need to build their burrow walls.
The rest should be to roughly equal parts coarse, medium and fairly fine (don't use very fine) coral/aragonite sand.
Mix the coral gravel, coarse and medium sand and fill it between the rocks. Add the fine sand on top. The fish will remodel the sand anyway and ultimately the fine sand gets to the bottom, but I found it to work well this way.
If you have you can also add some shells or extra large pebbles. The fish like to use those as lids for their burrows.

[alton]

THRoewer glad yours are doing well. Mine is the most laid back BSJ I have ever owned, after he/she built their home last year , they have never moved. Just watches me work at my desk all day long. KOA Tyrants on substrates I like Carbsea Seafor Super Reef mixed with Small Aruba Puka Shell. If you decide to go with Pearly/Yellow heads order a pair from KP Aquatics https://www.kpaquatics.com/product-c...-fish/jawfish/
Do not order the imported ones. If you go with BSJF get the small to medium.

[ThRoewer]

The most interesting thing with my two is that the male is now constantly in mating coloration.

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[alton]

Yea I miss my flashing male

[ThRoewer]

Mine looks like a plucked chicken with a seemingly permanent split in his dorsal fin after the female gave him a beating. Now that he has caught up in size they seem to get along. The one lesson learned from this is to make sure that the male is larger than the female(s).

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[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

Originally Posted by alton

KOA Tyrants on substrates I like Carbsea Seafor Super Reef mixed with Small Aruba Puka Shell. If you decide to go with Pearly/Yellow heads order a pair from KP Aquatics https://www.kpaquatics.com/product-c...-fish/jawfish/
Do not order the imported ones. If you go with BSJF get the small to medium.

Originally Posted by ThRoewer

The jawfish tank is my most neglected tank - and the cleanest. The fish, pods and bacteria do all the work. The tank has a skimmer, but it hardly skims anything.

As for the sand bed, you want to place a few rocks (Real Reef Live Rock is pretty good for this but regular live rock or even halved ceramic flowerpots are fine) on the ground to give the fish some caves to dig out. Then you fill in the gravel and sand.

1/4 to 1/3 should be extra coarse coral gravel (basically broken and rounded off coral sticks). This is what they need to build their burrow walls.
The rest should be to roughly equal parts coarse, medium and fairly fine (don't use very fine) coral/aragonite sand.
Mix the coral gravel, coarse and medium sand and fill it between the rocks. Add the fine sand on top. The fish will remodel the sand anyway and ultimately the fine sand gets to the bottom, but I found it to work well this way.
If you have you can also add some shells or extra large pebbles. The fish like to use those as lids for their burrows.

Thanks, folks. Both of those formulas look good. The Caribsea Small Aruba Puka Shells (AKA Bag O'Shells) looks like a particularly awesome touch. I may use those, or if I get my Live Rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater , KP Aquatics or ARC reefs I may just order an appropriate live sand. (each company is in the Pearly's natural range, and TBS' looks pretty darn coarse, with rubble and shells. Though I'd need to add some cave-y LR, and probably would add some additional rock rubble, a small Bag O'Shells, and maybe a bit of extra really fine sand, depending on the consistency of what I get).

If I put the jawfish in a 20 gallon (or an equivalent 24X12" space in a larger tank), I'll need about 45lbs of sand for a 4" DSB according to the marine depot calculator; 105 if I use a 40 breeder or 36X18" space.

Yes, alton, if I got a pearly KP is definitely the place. Nothing better than getting the fish straight from the collector.... Especially since I live in an Eastern US metropolitan area - all this stuff from Florida could leave the shop at lunch time and I could pick it up by the time work's over.