Jawfish Owners Poll - Jumped or not?

I think that we're more to blame These fish live in deeper water in rubble/sand zones in the wild, not in shallow water near or on the reef. We can't expect them to feel comfortable burrowing in a shallow bed of sand underneath a pile of live rock. It just ain't natural

 

true, true, an 20" deep ocean isn't what they're expecting to encounter when they launch up.

 

i always question the way a fish was 'brought' into the LFS. by that i mean, i check to see if the fish was bred in captivity or wild.

id tend to guess the fish that truly come from the ocean would have a problem with a 20-30" deep captive tank. if it was bred in captivity you'd think it's learned its boundaries already.

this is atleast the mentality ive taken thus far in my fish purchases. the blue jawfish is on my list of livestock to purchase as well. its a great looking fish, great personality, and fun to watch. it is, however, an investment. my LFS' around here in the NW suburbs of chicago want no less than $100 for those.

edit: ill probably just setup a makeshift screen over the tank though when i do a jawfish because regardless of how it was bred id still be concerned that a $100 fish was going to die because of jumpin

 

You can always try a yellowhead first to see how it does, but I know every fish is different. I'm still going to go the yellowhead route just so I'm not too crushed if it does jump.

 

My bluespot jumped twice. Both times in the middle of the night.. Luckly load enough to wake me up..

 

my tiger jawfish loves to burrow i think any rock that is on the bottom of the tank he has or has tryed to burrow under its nice i guess my pepperment shrimp lives in one of his "trial burrows" i call them... but i have never really seen him towards the top of the tank he swims around at night but not really the top i have a partial covered tank just in case fyi ... i would get a jawfish for any salt tank setup just because they are awsume to watch

 

My jumped constantly, hitting the top of my RSM. I put him in a QT for ich treatment, which had an acrylic top and a couple 1" round holes. He made it through one of the holes after about a week in QT, and died out of the tank before I saw him the next morning.

 

Got my jawfish a few days ago, so far he is settled in a nice burrow. Comes out to eat and inspect, thanks for the input everyone!

 

Congrats on the jawfish.

I don't have one, but I find it interesting that a mantis shrimp (O. havanensis) that is collected in the same area as jawfish is also a known jumper. As a solution I covered the open areas of my tank with plastic gutter guard.

 

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum and I've been thinking of getting a blue spotted jawfish for a while now, but I've got a couple of questions first. I've been keeping a 10 gal nano for 11 months now and like most people who get into the hobby that just wasn't enough so I set up a 40 gal Seaclear Sys II 3 weeks ago. I used some of my old live rock hoping to jump start the cycling process and it seems to have worked. I was wondering how deep a sand bed I should have to accommodate this species? I read somewhere that you can reduce you chances of jumping if you introduce these guys first into an aquarium, from what I've read though it seems like jumping's an ever present threat. Any tips on how to avoid this, it would be an aweful shame to lose one of these beautiful little guys? In the future I would like to keep a mandarin dragonet, occellaris clown, and yellow tang in the same aquarium. I however have read that surgeonfish and other fast fish can stress these guys out, again does anyone have some experience with the compatability of these types of fish?

Thanks for any advice.