GREAT FISH!!! great personality but they will move sand... want to make sure and have a deep sand bed. and hope he makes his home where you can see it... pretty territorial around their lair but beautiful fish but they will rearrange your sandbed ALOT!!!
I really, really enjoy Jaw Fish. They have great personality and are so fun to watch. You will need a deep sand bed as previously stated. They do tend to jump if threatened so be sure to have a cover until a den is created. It may be a good idea to add him to your tank at night when the other fish are less active to give it a chance to settle. It will start digging almost immediately. It can take a day or two for it to come out of hiding but in time you will enjoy this fish.
I've thinking about getting one. But I have a barebottom tank. I saw a post where someone created a home out of barnicles that their jaw moved right into. I wonder if that would work long term with them?
My LFS has a ton of them in stock right now. Apparently they are "in seaon" this time of year. The price also gets a bit lower on them during this time of year.
that would be a crap shoot in a bare bottom... you would want to make sure to have enough "building material" for the little guy... they are allways cleaning house and rearranging. when I had mine about every other morning I would wake to find the whole bottom of the tank re-scaped!!
you would want to make sure to have enough "building material" for the little guy
I never considered a jawfish before for that very reason. That would have been a problem to have things rearranged because my tank was so crowded that a jawfish would have invariably used expensive frags as building blocks or caused aggressive corals to get to close to each other. But "thanks" to a kalk overdose last summer, and other various forms of coral attrition , I don't have that much of an over crowding issue any more.
I don't think a whole frag would be used. I guess if it is small enough and just setting on the sand bed anything is possible. Old snail/hermit shells, small rock rubble and lots of sand is the extent of what I have seen moved. Other small debris can be added. Old barnacles look really cool if they happen you grab one. However, if you have a deep sand bed and your LR is sitting on top of the bed for support rather than the floor on the tank, you could have a cave in as a burrow is engineered.
I had three of them in a 180 and they were the most interesting things in the tank as far as fish go. Now that I have sand in the tank I pan on getting at least 2 if not 3 of them again. Nothing beats them IMO