Jawfish Biotope

D

DFason

New member
I am throwing the idea around of doing a biotope for Jawfish.

My new tank is going to be 30x22x20. Here's the plan...

Left side with only 6-8" of rock for a mix of LPS and SPS and then the other 24" just open sand bed. 3-5" of sand, soft substrate on the bottom and then crushed coral/rubble on the top. The tank will be rimless but I will have a mesh top to keep them from jumping.

2-3 Opistognathus aurifrons ( Yellow Head Jawfish )
1 - Opistognathus rosenblatti ( Blue Spotted Jawfish )
1 - Other species of Jawfish

The only other fish would be a Clown fish, Red Spot Cardinals and a few Trimma's.

Feeding will be twice a day. Lighting will be T5's, and I will be running ozone.

Can you guys see any problems with this? Has anyone else tried this out? I think this would be a fun tank to watch, jawfish popping up and down through out the day with the cardinals above swimming in the open.

-Dave
 
The mix of jawfish species probably won't get along well. You'll likely dwindle down to a single pair of Yellowheads once they claim their territory. Also, layering the sand is a bad idea, just mix up the CC and sand. 3-5" of sand will be a good number.

If you can, find a couple flat rocks and small support rocks. Before adding sand, stack them so the flat rocks create a cave, then cover most or all of the structures with sand. Jawfish build their burrows under flat rocks, not in bare sand. So you need a flat rock for them to build under, and you need the support rocks so they don't tunnel out too much and crush themselves.

Also have lots of smaller 1/4" sized shells, rocks and other various pieces that they can use to construct the walls to their dens. A couple shells will also provide a doorway for their burrow.

Otherwise, looks good. :)
 
AuroraDrvr - Thanks so much! This is what I need. I will then go with 4-5 Yellowheads then and keep the other fish.

As for the flat rocks, I would need to just add 3-4" flat pieces of rock supported by small rubble so they can have their borrows? Then just cover most with the sand? Would it be smart to add random tunnel system of 1/2" PVC also under all of it too?

mak3mydae - I may add some but I want to do this on a more "natural" approach, but I may add a few pieces of PVC under neath.

-Dave
 
DFason said:
AuroraDrvr - Thanks so much! This is what I need. I will then go with 4-5 Yellowheads then and keep the other fish.
Click to expand...
Just in case two pair off, be prepared to possibly have to move the remaining 2-3 out of the tank, in case the pair becomes aggressive.

DFason said:
As for the flat rocks, I would need to just add 3-4" flat pieces of rock supported by small rubble so they can have their borrows? Then just cover most with the sand? Would it be smart to add random tunnel system of 1/2" PVC also under all of it too?
Click to expand...
You want enough space under the rocks so they can comfortably fit a den under there, I'd say minimum 1" to max of 2.5". You could also cut some PVC tubing down to 1.5" long pieces and use that to support the partially buried roofs. The tunnel system is hit or miss.
 
I have, I had two pairs of yellow heads. Things went well until they started getting some sort of weird illness causing them to remain healthy but lose their eyesight. I target fed them for as long as I could, but I lost three of them that way.... I'm done with jaws as a result.
 
Well thats a bummer. Still going to go through with it. Should be a fun tank!

I'll make sure to post a thread on here when I get it up an running.

-Dave
 
I have had great success with different species of jawfish in the same tank, the mix you want is good, but to keep the bluespot healthy they like it cooler then normal tropical tanks, but the other species of jawfish will do fine in the low 70's which should keep the blue spots fine. I have kept banded, yellowheads, giant, spotfin, swordtail and dusky jawfish together with bluespots in a 900 gal tank and they did great, there were 23 jawfish and the sand space where they could burrow was about the size of a 100 gal tank, 4 and a half foot by 1 and a half feet , the rest of the tank was live rock and corals.

Aurora diver is correct about the flat rock under the sand, but not all jawfish use that as the roof to the burrow, for instance giant and banded jawfish just use rubble and don't build burrow near a rock, but almost all yellowheads in the wild find a flat rock to build there burrows under. Swordtail jawfish never build a burrow on sand, but use a hole in the solid reef structure and pull sand and rubble to the hole as the tunnel. I have collected 8 different species of jawfish during my years of collecting, and each species has a typical type of burrow and prefered habitat to build, but one thing common with all of them is they move the burrows during different times of the year, usually to specific temps, either shallower in winter, and deeper as the shallows warm up. In your tank this means they will move there burrows frequently as the seasons change, and if your tank isn't well covered they will end up on the floor. They can find very small openings so be careful no matter what species you finally decide on.
 
Just wanted to say the trimma gobies might end up a snack. There is a picture on her floating around somewhere of a purple firefish in a blue spotted jawfish mouth...
 
And the red dot cardinals will most likely end up dead. I think as far as the jaws go you have some good advice to go off of.
 
I have had a few Red spot cardinals in my tank for almost a year now. They are tuff at first but once they are established they are very hardy!

-Dave
 
I did :D

Look about mid way, I put picture up too. I am going to try and get 10-15 more and see how they do now that I know a little better.

-Dave
 
Wow sorry, I feel like such an a$s now. Well thanks.

As for your jawfish tank, I think it would cool to also do some macroalgae in there. For some reason it just seems to fit with the jawfish.
 
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