More Jawfish Mischief

[Flumpus]

I love watching my pearly jawfish, he's so odd, always up to something, and always looking so unhappy that he's having to do it. This morning, after the fish were fed, I noticed that he was messing with one of the shells that was buried and makes up part of his home. He ended up knocking it out of place, and it fell into the hole, getting wedged so that he couldn't get it out. I knew he would have to take apart the rest of the stacked shells, that were buried in the sand surrounding his hole, but he hadn't figured that out yet. He tried for five minutes to get this shell out, resting every once in a while, and grabbing the leftover bits of mysis that were floating around. Finally he started uncovering all the shells, taking them out one by one, until he could reach down and get a firm grip on the shell blocking his hole. Once he got that out, he started rebuilding, spitting mouth fulls of sand out of his hole every minute or so, and putting his shells into place, then burying them again. He did use a shell that contained a snail, but he's done it before, and each time the snail manages to get out, no doubt upsetting the jawfish in the process.

Just wanted to share my latest jawfish story. I could sit around and watch him all day, he's just so interesting. If you've got the tank and space, I highly recommend a pearly jawfish.

 

[shibby]

another awesome jawfish story your RELI tempting me to get one !!! i think i may theres a gd 4inch gravel base for one over the right hand side, where as we speak it looks like my hermits r wrestling.

 

[thefirethief]

Jawfish were one of the first fish I considered for my new (and first) reef tank and this story has only heightened my enthusiasm. What depth of sandbed do you have?

Mark

 

[kkyyllee]

paerly jawfish need atleast a 4 inch sand bed with lots of rubble


funny story, now i must setup that jawfish tank ive always wanted...lol

 

[Danno]

Very cool. To add to the questions, what kind of sand/gravel/crushed coral does your Pearly like?

 

[n3ont3tra]

I've been in love with jawfish ever since I saw one at the Baltimore Aquarium. Dozens of tangs and angels in a huge reef tank and I notice on little fish in the corner, spitting out sand. I'm getting one for my tank.

 

[Deep Freeze]

whats the min. tank size for one?

 

[n3ont3tra]

Liveaquaria says 10g.

 

[Flumpus]

I see I have some questions...

First, people do say 4-5" of sand, and not fine sand, but it needs to have some bigger chunks in it as well. I agree with the bigger chunks part, and I have this sand. As for the 4-5" part, yes and no. Your jawfish will need that much sand to build his home, but his home won't be the entire tank. When we first setup our tank, we had about an inch and a half of sand at the front of the tank, and there was a pretty steep slope to the back, where there was 4-5". We figured the jawfish would find the deep sand and dig there. He didn't. He chose a spot that wasn't very deep, and moved sand from other places in the tank, and built up his home. I don't know if he was annoyed that he had to do that (you can't tell with that grumpy face of his), but it worked, and he's got plenty of sand to work with now, even if he did have to move it himself. I'd say if our sand was flat, it'd be about 3" over the whole tank.

Minimum tank size is tough, because you have to take into account the sand. If you have 4" of sand in a 10g tank, that takes away a lot of that 10g of water. You could probably do it in a 10g if you really wanted to, but I'd go with a taller tank, because of the sand, maybe a 20g tall or something like that. Ours is in a 33g cube.

Oh, and if you like seahorses, they make GREAT tankmates.

 

[n3ont3tra]

Could we see a pic of your tank?

 

[Flumpus]

Here's the tank:

Here's the jawfish:

Halfway in his hole:

And giving me the stink eye:

 

[n3ont3tra]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

 

[thefirethief]

Flumpus, those pictures are absolutely stunning! You've got some beautiful live rock in there too, plenty of coraline algae growth by the looks of it. What is your lighting setup like?

 

[Flumpus]

Funny you should ask about the light... It's a 45w 50/50 light, so it's not powerful at all. I'm only keeping mushrooms and a couple other soft corals (daisy polyps and star polyps), and all are doing really well. I've thought about getting something like a 96w light, but right now I don't really have a reason.

 

[Danno]

Great pictures.
Thanks for the info.