Yellowheaded Jawfish

[Timbor]

I figure I will ask you jawfish people a question...

In about a week or so, I will have my new 35 gallon tank set up. The dimensions are 36"x12"x18"

I would like to keep yellowheaded jawfish as the primary fish, although I am not certain on what the stocking density should be.

Would it be ok to keep 3 yellowheads in my tank? Think they could get along?
My lfs has 3 in the store right now, so I have them on hold.
Also, when I was in there, I saw 2 of them hiding together under a rock (yeah, the store setup isnt ideal for them). Could this possibly be a pair, or are they just hiding together for lack of space?

Thanks,

Tim

 

[mwp]

Tim, I could only speculate that perhaps those two sharing a burrow are a pair...if they're stressed out they could be sharing it when they wouldn't be otherwise.

Martin, I have a pair of jawfish from the same source as yours on their way, due to arrive tomorrow. I decided I should try raising them before moving on and making the investment in blue dots

Good luck to everyone who's trying the jaws!

Matt

 

[MMoe]

Hi Matt, good luck with your jawfish, I think it's a good idea to work with the yellowheads first and then move on to the blue dots. The experience will make it easier, perhaps help to avoid some mistakes, but it's important to remember that different species may well behave and react differently. So always be open and observent when switching species, but you already know that.... I lost one female from my original colony of 6, she did spawn twice, but the male? did not incubate the eggs. I think she was old (probably 2 years) and at the end of her life cycle. I added a new smaller jawfish to the mix, and he? disappeared the monment I put him in the tank, just plain disappeared! After a week, I gave up on him, thought a crab must have gotten him, and then, lo and behold, he turns up at feeding time a week, yeah a week, later. Now he comes out once in a whlie to feed and then disappears again, He is still the "odd man out" in the colony, doesn't have a permanent burrow, and "fights with everybody else. Four of the original six each have their own burrow and interact occasionally. They are huge, like 5 inches TL, and I think that they are near the end of their natural life cycle. I can't tell the sex for sure on any of them. I may go back out in October and get some smaller ones if they don't spawn for me by then, if they are still around. I have found that they will share a burrow, but evidently they don't like to do so. I think a natural pair will have separate burrows that are near each other, sometimes a burrow seems to have two separate enterances so maybe sometimes they do share a burrow. And if they are suprised or stressed two or three will dart into one burrow, but very soon the intruder leaves in a hurry.

Well know I have to go out and prepare for Ernesto's visit, I hope he is gentlemanly and doesn't trash the place too badly.

Martin

 

[David M]

FWIW I did in fact blow some tall dollars on (4) Blue Spotted jawfish which I eventually lost within about 6 weeks as I recall. They did not eat well but seemed to do OK for the first 4-5 weeks. They set up seperate borrows in the 90gallon tank with 6" mixed/ coarse substrate. From behavior alone my guess was I had 3m & 1f. Two certainly did seem to behave as a pair. Their burrows were near each other and the other fish were on the oposite side of the tank.

OK, the part that is relevent to the thread is this; the supposed male on the right side dug a tunnel to the burrow of the suspected female. He was freuquently together with her in her burrow, but I never saw her in his. He went back & forth through the tunnel, I never saw him enter through the "door".

I have pics of this, I don't know why it has to be such work to put pics on RC :mad2: When I get a chance I'll put the here

 

[David M]

Showing interest:

 

[David M]

Taking a step forward

 

[David M]

I saw them together inside the PVC pipe several times. The pic does not show the burrow that was made about 6" from the pipe (towards the front) with the connecting tunnel but there was also a short tunnel from where you see him now to into the pipe.

 

[David M]

Oh I should mention that there are more holes in the pipe than you can see. The fish are looking at each other through one on the side and the tunnel connects to a hole under the substrate. Basicall the pipe is Swiss cheese

 

[jake levi]

Martin great to see you here, I been wondering if Ernesto was going to bypass you. Sure glad you got through last seasons.
I'm back in country and recycling some tanks. Jawfish have sure gone up in price since I last kept them. But they are ones that demand keeping.

Looking forward to hearing your results on these little beauties.
Be well and be safe.

 

[jake levi]

Martin I just wantede to second the mention of the Books On Demand, I just got a friend hooked up to put out some booklets,

there are several companys from Kinkos to Cafe Press. Its the cheapest way to publish now that I know of other then having a rich sponsor.

There are a LOT of us out here been waiting for that one. My nephew works for the Xerox devision that developed it and he brought me a number of books put out by the same printer, pro products.

Give it some thought please.

 

[MMoe]

Hi Jake,
Good to hear from you. Ernesto was kind to us. He is winding down
now. We didn't get much, basically a night and day of
spitting rain (not much water actually, only about one
to two inches) and some wind, up to 40 maybe 45 mph.
Luckly the wind was from the north at first, swung
around to the west and then maintained a flow from the
south for most of the night and even now in the
morning. It's dropped to less then 20 mph at this
point and seems to be dropping off steadly. The wind
directions and patterns were kind to the beach, very
little seaweed and nice sloping beach that the light
surf rolls gently over. We had our coffee out on the
enclosed deck watching the sandpipers and plovers run on the
beach, the dark clouds and a little rain out over the
bay, and the man-o-war birds hovering low over the
dock. All in all Ernesto was kind to us. No damage and
my new shade structure for plankton culture held firm. We probably had gusts up
to about 50 mph at most. Never lost electric so the
lab, and the fish and urchins, were fine. My jawfish still have not spawned, they may be past the part of their life cycle where they spawn easily, if so I"ll go out and get some smaller ones in Oct. I have three apparent pairs of blackcaps, they are newly formed so I don't know for sure that they will form spawning pairs, but we'll see. The Diadema urchins are growing well and looking good, I'll try to spawn them again in mid September. Rearing the larvae should be interesting. I do have some micro algae culture going now and I'll get the 4 Calwell tubes running as soon as I get the plumbing for air and water completed under the new shade structure. So the world turns and I try to keep up.... Still don't know what I'll do about the books yet. I do need to do something however.

Martin

 

[mwp]

Martin, glad to hear Ernesto treated you well.

I'll have to officially throw my hat into the jawfish ring - my pair of Pearly Jaws showed up last night. VERY beautiful fish that are currently in the process of building new homes in the 24 gallon with my pair of Percs.

Matt

 

[Kathy55g]

Glad Ernesto was a gentleman. Lovely description of the wildlife.
Kathy

 

[Luis A M]

Hi Martin,
good that Ernesto behaved. Every time I hear of a hurri hitting the Keys,I´m concerned about you,as you´re the only people I know living there.After having recruited you in this Forum,it would be a shame to have you "gone with the wind"
Keep us posted with your research.Have you actually spawned and raised Diadema?.
What are your goals with plankton culture,have you isolated some copepod species?.It would be terrific if you can establish stocks of Oithona and the paracalanids.
On the trivia side,man o war must be frigate birds?.Some few can be seen at this latitude (35ºS) in Summer,though only females.
And could you find the meaning of Islamorada?Purple Island or Home Island,as Barbara said?

 

[MMoe]

Hi Luis,
Yep, we were lucky this time. Unfortunately, here in the Keys, there is always a next time. I think we will be OK as long as we don’t get a direct hit from a 4 or 5, especially during high tide on a full moon. I have tried to spawn Diadema, Tom Capo from the University of Miami aquaculture lab came down and we worked my brood stock. We tried agitation and KCl injections, worked with 6 and lost one to the process. Although Diadema are relatively easy to spawn my gonads (the urchins, that is) were not ripe and we were not successful. The urchins were a little small and had been collected recently from the shallow reef top rubble area where the water is quite warm this time of year. In the Keys, apparently, Diadema do not spawn readily in the summer, they prefer colder water for this activity, so I will try again in Sept. and/or Oct. In the meantime they are feeding well, growing bigger, and (hopefully) getting ripe. Rearing them will be interesting. They have relatively long lived larvae, around 40 days evidently, some lab cultured larvae came through in 30 days and others in over 50 so there is much to be learned here. I do have some micro algae under culture, T. iso. that they feed on, and I have wild plankton, with much micro algae available in that. I’m not sure how far I will go with controlled culture of copepods, I plan to work with wild collections and holding techniques… now that I think about it, it would take too much text to get into my plans for that here. Later…

Yep, man-o-war birds are frigate birds, they got their name from one of the early residents of the Keys that was lying under a coconut tree one day, watching the birds, drinking beer, and putting off going to back to work. Finally he said, “Frigate, I’m just going to stay here.” I do that too once in a while….

Islamorada has two meanings in Spanish, one is purple islands and the other is island home. But for most folks, and the fellow who named Islamorada after his sailboat, it comes from Island Home, the name of his boat. And some think it was named after a type of marine snail that was found on the ocean side and produced purple ink that was used as a dye. I'll go with island home.

Martin

 

[jake levi]

Hi Martin
just curious, was that snail a murex ? What size is it ? I am just wondering if its related to one of the two murex in the Med. that produced the ancient purple dyes.

I was in a shop in Saginaw the other day, saw he had yellow heads priced at around $20, I was tempted but they looked skinny, he had them in a tank with just enough substrate to cover the glass, yet had pcs of pvc in other tanks,

 

[MMoe]

Hi Jake,
On the snails with the purple ink, I don't know. Evidently they are not present now, or at least I haven't seen them and don't know anyone that has. I would assume that they were a murex, but don't know.

Yellowheads are the most amazing little fish. More fun to watch than angelfish or even clowns. They are truely the earthwork engineers of the fish world. They do need substrate and cover, and it need not be deep substrate as long as there is some sort of cavern with an entrance that can be closed. That, and a bit of shaved shrimp, is all they need to be happy. Without that they are severly stressed and don't do well.

Martin

 

[jake levi]

well, I'll be looking for some of those 'American murex' , I am curious now, I got a dozen along the shore near Haifa and put them into an 18 gal tank, even with feeding fish they cannibalized down to six, they are a definite carnivorous gastropod. They are the original source of the puple dye for the techilot of the prayer shawls. Now commercial is used but I think we could culture the original. It DOES take a lot of them.

I have always liked the yellow heads, great little gravel movers, I think its worth burrying some of my caves with some interconnecting pvc, that'd make about an 8" sunstrate, but would look okay in a 29. They are well worth 'spoiling' them with some dedicated housing.

My previous ones did like 'pods, I can bury a cave with a pvc to an elbow coming up to a 'surface' cave and the pvc exiting inside the cave. I have a bunch of these just finishing the salt water curing.

Your shaved shrimp: mysis or pennaeus ?

 

[stevemc]

Shaved shrimp is just frozen pink(eating type)shrimp from the supermarket. Just take a sharp knife and slice very thin and chop. Also they could use well fed live adult brine shrimp.

 

[jake levi]

My last jawfish had 'pods and frozen adult brine shrimp, and live adult BS rarely, my production was pretty sporadic on them, other things I was able to feed was other frozen foods, we have a much wider supply now, and I am a firm believer in nutritional density.

What other diet items have others found accepted? They would taste flake , spit it out and give me a dirty look. Thankfully I had a good culture of 'pods going. Now with selcon etc we can culture beter live foods.