After some thought, impulse won out and I bought a golden dwarf moray eel for the reef tank ten days ago. It's about 8-10" so near full size. Decent if not great color and price was right, $129 at a LFS (Aquarium Arts). There is a weird "growth" on the upper part of his mouth, anyone have an idea what it is ? My wife picked him up from the LFS a few days after he came in from Hawaii. I saw him right after he came in and he had it then. Probably should not have bought him for this reason, but he was acting normally and they are supposed to be very hardy. And they are rare, not sure when I would find another one. Of course, a week later they get another one in!
He readily ate in my tank, accepting half pieces of silversides, krill, and squid; apparently this was insufficient...
Wasting little time in causing trouble, he immediately found and raided the two jawfish burrows. At one point, I saw heads of the eel and yellow headed jawfish stickout of the same hole, side by side. Would have been an awesome photo had I gotten the camera in time. Unfortunately, that same yellow headed jawfish became a meal for the eel last night. It snuck up, entered the back side of the burrow in stealth fashion, and got the jawfish by the tail. My wife and 5yr old daughter witnessed the episode, and were quite horrified. She said the poor jawfish was "screaming" with terror apparent in its eyes the whole time it was being eaten, even when only its head was still visible. Eel eventually left the burrow to disappear into the rocks, with the jawfish visible inside it. My wife banged on the glass but to no avail and there wasn't really anything else to do.
The pearly was actually not looking too good before this, there were several areas of discoloration on its body and part of its tail was missing -- I suspect from either bristleworms or maybe the pistol shrimp. This has happened to all the jawfish I have had (several pearly and blue spots), other than a few I lost early on from jumping through eggcrate and netting -- and all have died except for one BSJF who recovered and now looks great six months later. The pearly was still eating and acting fine but may have not been viable for much longer, I don't know. Others were same until the last day or two when they refused food and had obvious difficulty breathing. And typical for pearly jawfish, this one was pretty small.
I have a purple firefish and yashia goby, neither of which I've been able to find for the last few days. Not too unusual as I've gone weeks without seeing them in the past, as there are a lot of active fish in the tank and they mostly hide on the bottom. So I'm not ready to classify them as MIA, but I am wondering if they too were eel food.
My blue spot jawfish is MUCH larger than the pearly (the biggest BSJF I have seen, probably since he eats same size pieces of krill I feed a sub-adult dwarf lionfish) and I don't think the eel could eat him -- it apparently had a fairly hard time swallowing the pearly and he has a tough time eating whole krill and anything larger than a small silversides. But it certainly could bite/injure him. Eel has entered his burrow several times, BSJF jawfish will swim out, getring pretty bent out of shape in the process. Eventually he returns and does some burrow reinforcement.
So I'm now stuck between trying to remove the eel -- any suggestions on best way to do this in a big tank with 450 lbs of live rock ? -- and trying to feed him enough to leave the smaller fish alone.
Here are some pics, including a few showing the unusual growth in the upper mouth. Is this just related to shipping damage, or is it a tumor or something like that ? Obviously it hasn't blunted his appetite or kept him from eating :strange:
First pic shows the BSJF & dwarf eel staring each other down, after eel entered its burrow uninvited. Note the poor little pearly jawfish (RIP) in between.
Other than the mouth funk, he's very cute and wife & I thought he was very cool until the jawfish episode. Probably don't have to say she's not a big fan of him any more. If he messes with my BSJF he may end up as my dinner i.e. unagi maki.
Anyway, these are cool and "reef safe" in that they won't decimate your corals and inverts. But they definitely will go after fish!
PS -- This is not the first predator I have added to the reef tank. I also have a fuzzy dwarf lionfish who has gotten pretty big over the past nine months, and he hasn't gone after any fish including nano-sized yashia goby, tailspot blenny, pearly jawfish, etc. I feed him daily, alternating between silversides, krill, and squid. He's been real easy to feed once weaned to frozen food, though that took awhile. And of course he doesn't harm any corals. Highly recommended reef-safe fish
He readily ate in my tank, accepting half pieces of silversides, krill, and squid; apparently this was insufficient...
Wasting little time in causing trouble, he immediately found and raided the two jawfish burrows. At one point, I saw heads of the eel and yellow headed jawfish stickout of the same hole, side by side. Would have been an awesome photo had I gotten the camera in time. Unfortunately, that same yellow headed jawfish became a meal for the eel last night. It snuck up, entered the back side of the burrow in stealth fashion, and got the jawfish by the tail. My wife and 5yr old daughter witnessed the episode, and were quite horrified. She said the poor jawfish was "screaming" with terror apparent in its eyes the whole time it was being eaten, even when only its head was still visible. Eel eventually left the burrow to disappear into the rocks, with the jawfish visible inside it. My wife banged on the glass but to no avail and there wasn't really anything else to do.
The pearly was actually not looking too good before this, there were several areas of discoloration on its body and part of its tail was missing -- I suspect from either bristleworms or maybe the pistol shrimp. This has happened to all the jawfish I have had (several pearly and blue spots), other than a few I lost early on from jumping through eggcrate and netting -- and all have died except for one BSJF who recovered and now looks great six months later. The pearly was still eating and acting fine but may have not been viable for much longer, I don't know. Others were same until the last day or two when they refused food and had obvious difficulty breathing. And typical for pearly jawfish, this one was pretty small.
I have a purple firefish and yashia goby, neither of which I've been able to find for the last few days. Not too unusual as I've gone weeks without seeing them in the past, as there are a lot of active fish in the tank and they mostly hide on the bottom. So I'm not ready to classify them as MIA, but I am wondering if they too were eel food.
My blue spot jawfish is MUCH larger than the pearly (the biggest BSJF I have seen, probably since he eats same size pieces of krill I feed a sub-adult dwarf lionfish) and I don't think the eel could eat him -- it apparently had a fairly hard time swallowing the pearly and he has a tough time eating whole krill and anything larger than a small silversides. But it certainly could bite/injure him. Eel has entered his burrow several times, BSJF jawfish will swim out, getring pretty bent out of shape in the process. Eventually he returns and does some burrow reinforcement.
So I'm now stuck between trying to remove the eel -- any suggestions on best way to do this in a big tank with 450 lbs of live rock ? -- and trying to feed him enough to leave the smaller fish alone.
Here are some pics, including a few showing the unusual growth in the upper mouth. Is this just related to shipping damage, or is it a tumor or something like that ? Obviously it hasn't blunted his appetite or kept him from eating :strange:
First pic shows the BSJF & dwarf eel staring each other down, after eel entered its burrow uninvited. Note the poor little pearly jawfish (RIP) in between.
Other than the mouth funk, he's very cute and wife & I thought he was very cool until the jawfish episode. Probably don't have to say she's not a big fan of him any more. If he messes with my BSJF he may end up as my dinner i.e. unagi maki.
Anyway, these are cool and "reef safe" in that they won't decimate your corals and inverts. But they definitely will go after fish!
PS -- This is not the first predator I have added to the reef tank. I also have a fuzzy dwarf lionfish who has gotten pretty big over the past nine months, and he hasn't gone after any fish including nano-sized yashia goby, tailspot blenny, pearly jawfish, etc. I feed him daily, alternating between silversides, krill, and squid. He's been real easy to feed once weaned to frozen food, though that took awhile. And of course he doesn't harm any corals. Highly recommended reef-safe fish
