Jawfish

[shinosuke]

Hello,
I am getting a yellow headed jawfish in the near future. It is on order at my LFS, and I have an agreement with them that I wont buy it until I see it eat, and they wont sell it to anyone else.
So I have a 55g tank with a bit of live rock on one side, a couple hermits and some snails. I also have a 20g refuge with lots of chateo macroalgae. The jawfish will be the first fish to go into my tank, and I'm adding a bunch of boiled seashells and stuff that I got from my local beach, to help him build his burrow.
I want the fish to build its burrow on the side away from the LR, is there a way to entice it to do such a thing? I love the goby/blenny shape, and I want to get a hi fin red banded goby http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=181 with a pistol shrimp for the tank, after the jawfish is settled in. Do you forsee any problems with that?
Thanks for your time,
~Adam D.

 

[jdieck]

The Jawfish not will be the ideal starter if your tank is new. I will wait until the tank has matured a bit.
Note also that they are atletic jumpers and can find the smalest of holes so if your aquarium is not completely covered you may find him carpet surfin one of these mornings.
There is no way to make him build the burough on an specific place, they usualy build three or four before setling in a place they like.
Also note that they need a deep sand bed and like to dig under the rock so if the rock is not independently supported from the bottom, say with PVC niples used like columns, you may have an avalanche. Shells, small peebles etc. need to be no larger than about 1/4 to 3/8" which they use for supporting the sand at the burough's sides and entrance.

 

[shinosuke]

The main reason I was going to add him as the starter fish is because Henry Schultz reccomended doing so in his article here : http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-03/hcs3/index.php . I've been adding a bit of fish food to the tank every day for @ 2 weeks now, I've had the LR in there a week and a half, and some hermits/snails for a few days with no casualtys. No detectable bad stuff, like ammonia etc. I'm trying to find some SD sand at my local HomeDepot, but that's not going too well. If nothing else turns up in the next day or two I'm just going to get some beach sand and bake it for awhile. That way at least the consistency will be good.
~Adam D.