Any input from folks familiar with jawfish behavior appreciated. I have two yellow head jawfish in a new 90gal tank with no other tank mates currently except for 2 red leg hermits and 3 blue leg hermits. They have been in the tank maybe a month, when I got them they both set up burrows in opposite corners of the tank (in ~3.5-4 inches of sand) and seemed to be rather happy. One day I saw however that the bigger of the two had kicked the smaller of the two out of their burrow. The bigger was keeping the smaller away and then went to work enlarging that burrow to make room for their bigger size. The smaller started making a burrow right next to it in loose sand. The next day that 'new' burrow was empty and I could find the smaller one no where. It's been maybe 3 days now and I still haven't seen the smaller one. I checked that area where they had started building a second burrow and there was no fish there, and no fish body buried in the sand. There are places in the rockwork they could be hiding I guess but not a lot, and I would have expected to see them building a new burrow or poking out to eat and I have seen neither head nor tail. I don't have any big enough crabs that they could have devoured a fish in a couple days I think. No ammonia spike yet. I have an acrylic lid, and found no fish on the floor obviously, and have no cat who could have removed evidence. One thing I've been wondering/hoping is perhaps they are both in that one burrow together. I only ever see a single head pop out but since they look so similar it is hard to tell if that is the bigger or the smaller one I see, but at feeding time when they come all the way out it's for sure only the bigger one I've seen. I didn't think they would be happy spending much time fully in the burrow not coming out at all, and am worried about them not getting food. Perhaps overly optimistic, but do they do this when pairing up and breeding? Perhaps the little one is the lady and she's down there laying eggs? Or maybe the little one is the male and he's down there with a brood in his mouth? Anyone seen this behaviour before?
Last edited:
