Blue-spot jawfish keepers, please post

[reefaquaria]

MtnDewMan

MtnDewMan

MtnDewMan, Any luck finding your jawfish? I hope he is just hiding, and didn't go carpet surfing. They are so much fun to watch!

 

[jms]

Did anyone ever figure out what the problem was? I lost three last year to this same mysterious white splotching/labored breathing/death syndrome. Bought a dusky afterward and no problems/doing fine.

 

[MtnDewMan]

Reefaquaria,

I must have missed your post here for some reason. No, still no sign of him either on the carpet or in the tank. I am sure he is unfortunately long gone by now

 

[Periclimenes Lover]

I still have the blue spot which I received at the end of May. It had the white spot problem (still seems to a little). I put it in a quarantine bucket with some copper, which didn't appear to do anything for it, for about a week. Then I added some antibiotic which I believe was called nitrofuran and I dosed it for three days (so total it was in quarantine ten days), then I added it back to the 20 gallon I had it in. It started to appear like it couldn't breathe again like before I put it in quarantine, had white flaky areas that were spreading, and was hanging out where the water flows in and there's a lot of air bubbles. Then I put it back in the quarantine bucket with the antibiotic only and dosed as directed for three days, then I left it in the bucket still (I'm sure there was still antibiotic even with the water change I did) for about another month. Now, starting last week, I took it out and have it in my 20 gallon tank. It is eating well and has been the entire time, it still looks a little flaky on the bottom part of his body, but not like it did before. It appears to be breathing normally still and it doesn't at this point look like the white flaky stuff is spreading like it did before. If I had to guess I think the patches are from a bacterial infection of some kind, the antibiotic is the only thing that definitely appeared to help it. When I had it in copper the first time I quarantined it didn't appear to get better until I added the antibiotic. The second time I quarantined I didn't add copper. In fact I just looked at him, and I'd say it's not really flaky skin like it was before, but more like darker and uneven colored. But not white patches that look like dead skin areas like before.

 

[saltwaterfishlover]

on a bright and discouraging note. Our 2 blue spots (reefaqauria and myself) just mated, and today we find little ones swimming in their deep rubble bed between thier burrows...... maybe by this time next year we might have tank breed and raised for sale.....

this brood I dont think we can recover any plus our rearing tank isnt cycled yet....

 

[billsreef]

saltwaterfishlover,

Good luck with the brood

I've got a couple of comments on the Blue Spotted Jawfish in general. Made some inquiries to a Marine Pathologist I know that does work with Tropical West Atlantic and Carribean fish. His initial comment on viewing these threads is that Amyloodinium is particularily common in the region these come from at this time of year. He also made some inquiries to someone involved with collecting in the region these guys come from, word is they are commonly being collecting with potossium cyanide

 

[saltwaterfishlover]

Bill

in regards to Amyloodinium does that meen my fish may be more succaptable to this disease or already have it? I have had them for 3 months now and they have been very healthy.
in regard to cyanide.
is that something that will pass on to young or just poison the ones caught in the wild?
I may be being dense at times but what was the meaning of your post positive encouragement, warning of issues or ????

 

[Angel*Fish]

Billsreef - That's very interesting! It's wonderful to be able to contact people who have connections to folks who may be able to figure these these things out...

I have seen amyloodinum (I believe) and what my fish had, could have begun with that, especially on his "scraped" areas. In his case, the antibiotic seemed to finish him off , which leads me to believe that a fungus might have developed.

Maybe the "disease" is so mysterious because the fish just "falls apart" immune system-wise and succumbs to everything it's exposed to? Well, thanks for checking into this and the cyanide collection thing is enough to put the last nail in the coffin for me:mad2:

 

[billsreef]

saltwaterfishlover,

The intent of my post was encouragment for you and a general warning to all

Since you've had them healthy for 3 months I would think your safe from worry from either Amyloodinium, unless introduced with a new addition to the tank, or problems from cyanide collection. Cyanide will only effect the fish directly exposed to it and not pass on to the young.

Considering the collection issues with these currently and the market price for them I think you've got a great oppertunity to get into culturing these guys I've found most gobies to be prolific spawners once in condition, so start setting up rearing tanks and some good larval food cultures


mantisagogo,

Ahh yes, connections are good Now if only I had good connections to people with money

Poisoning would certainly depress the immune the system Naturally that would lead to a vulnerabilty to a multitude of problems. I think we'll just have to wait for saltwaterfishlover's tank raised jawfish

 

[saltwaterfishlover]

Bill thanks for your explanation and words of encouragement. hopefully this will work out great.
best food to start is zooaplankton (rotifers)right? ah the joys of the hobby more stuff and more electricity....LOL

 

[Zephrant]

Well the blue-spot that I got about 5 weeks ago has come down with the white-spot disease... It is as specified above, a 1/4" patch on one side that looks like all the color has been removed from the skin.

I had him in a 25 gal QT tank for 3 weeks with no symptoms. I added a perc at week 2 that was being harassed too much in another tank, and a dart fish and bi-color blenny two weeks ago, (that I had QT's for 3 weeks prior). All of the fish are eating Mysis well, and everyone except the blue-spot is eating flake food too.

I am heading to the LFS to get some anti-biotic to try, and will move the blue-spot to a 10 gallon tank and try to treat him.

What is strange is that it took 5 weeks to show up and has not affected any other fish. The blue-spot eats heartily when I feed mysis or frozen brine.

This tank has been setup for 3 years, and has a strong growth of Caulerpa, and a few 'shrooms in addition to the 4 fish. No skimmer is used but I do water changes of 20-30% (8 gallons) each month.

I'll try to post a picture tonight.

Zeph

 

[Sloeber]

i must agree with both billsreef and Periclimenes Lover on the bacterial infection. i recently acquired 3 of these beauties, and so far 2 have succumbed to the infection. no doubt in my mind it is bacterial in nature. what a shame.

 

[BrianD]

Hello

Funny reading this thread and seeing my name mentioned by Mantisagogo back in April for a thread I posted to in 1999

At that time, I had purchased 2 bsj and they both died, although they both ate readily. One lasted about a week, the other for a couple of weeks.

Recently, I have had more success. I have one bsj that has been in my tank for about 3 months, and it looks very healthy and is a very aggressive eater. The only bad part is the darn fish is living in my overflow. It makes its home in an unused drain pipe to the sump (the drain pipe is cut off and capped since it was in the way of the skimmer). Anyway, this fish is doing very well.

I have 2 other bsj that I have had since last Friday. One has made a home/tunnel and has no noticeable spots or illness. He eats both flaked and frozen, and it very aggressive at feeding time. He will swim 6-8 inches away from his hole to get a piece of floating food, and quickly dart back to his hole.

The other bsj that I added last Friday was MIA since I added him, and I thought he was crab food. However, I found him today at lunch, in my overflow with the other bsj

I am going to rescue him out of the overflow tonight and see if he find a home in the tank. Eventually I am going to get the other bsj out of my overflow, but I have been afraid to mess with him while he is doing so well.

Brian

 

[jameso]

Steve Robinson of Cortez Marine is THE guy that imports the blue spot jawfish (he may not be the only guy, but he has a collecting station and wholesale).

Perhaps you folks need to talk to him. Maybe something in the way the fish are collected, shipped, or held is contributing to this problem.

Steve posts regularly in the Industry forum at reefs.org here:

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=35

Drop him a line. He loves to talk fish.

Cheers
James

 

[Zephrant]

Thanks for the additional info- Here is a couple of pictures-

I bought some Erythromycin today, and plan to try that tonight in a 10 gallon QT. Since it seamed like it might be a parasite, I bought some "Chem-Marin" "Stop Parasites" that says it can be used with Erythromycin.

I'm certainly not one to use drugs on the fish, but from previous posts I may only have one shot at stopping this, so was planning on using both products simultaneously. (Again, they claim they can be used together).

Good idea/Bad idea?

Closeup:

Zeph

 

[billsreef]

Erythromyacin is not very effective at the high pH of a marine tank. You'd be better off with either nitrofuran, kanacny or Maracyn 2. Haven't found pepper juice to be very effective on parasites so I've never tried using any of those antibiotics in conjunction with Stop Parasite or any other version of pepper juice.

 

[Zephrant]

Thanks Bill- I thought Maracyn 2 was Erythromycin? I'm not familiar with kanacny, but think I could find Nitrofuran.


I got the bugger out of the tank, and in to the 10 gallon QT. I've used the Erythromycin for tonight and can't get anything else until Friday no doubt.

Thanks again-


Zeph

 

[rick23]

just sharing...

just sharing...

I only have a yellow head jawfish, but they really JUMP, three days before, while I was setting up another 30g beside my old 30g, suddenly I just saw something jumped into the new tank, but I check that there is nothing in the tank, but the only thing that will jump is the yellowhead, then I turn over all the sand in the new tank, here it is, and cos the water is new in the tank , its only 15 degrees, I was so scare that he will die, then I catch him back to the old tank, totally three days never show up, I really think that he become the food for the hermit crab and the bistle worm... but today, he come out and eat when I feed the tank, I was sooooooooo happy about that., and he looks healthy too, just never think that he is a hardly fish.

and I found that there is a page in the online magazine is all about jawfish, if you haven't check that out , you can go and take a look.http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-03/hcs3/index.htm

 

[billsreef]

Zeph,

Plain Maracyn is erythomyacin. Maracyn 2 is minicyline which is a derivative of tetracycline. Be nice if they could of come up with more seperate names to avoid confusion

Rick,

Glad your jawfish showed up

 

[dragonet]

jawfish

jawfish

I've followed this discussion a bit. No one has mentioned how stressed out this fish gets with any stray voltage present in your tank. This is a scaleless fish so he can feel it and be bothered by it even if you don't feel it. Stress leads to disease problems. Use a grounding probe.

hey I'm becoming a professional fish killer