Jawfish lips hyperextended

[Steffnap]

The first picture is how he looks now, and the second one is a few weeks ago.

So my jaw fish basically did a full on over haul of his cave, i think it collapsed or something but he was fine, he just had to re dig it all. So yesterday he spent all day rebuilding with rocks and moving sand (super cool to watch by the way). But I noticed towards the end of the day that his lips were protruding from his face which is odd, I've never seen it before. He's eating totally normal, and still building normally. He seems a little bit more cautious coming out of his cave, he usually swims in the water column with the other fish but hasn't really left his area since the whole lip thing.

Anyway should I be worried? It seems like more of an injury then a disease. Anyone else have this problem?

 

[JGT]

The first picture is how he looks now, and the second one is a few weeks ago.

So my jaw fish basically did a full on over haul of his cave, i think it collapsed or something but he was fine, he just had to re dig it all. So yesterday he spent all day rebuilding with rocks and moving sand (super cool to watch by the way). But I noticed towards the end of the day that his lips were protruding from his face which is odd, I've never seen it before. He's eating totally normal, and still building normally. He seems a little bit more cautious coming out of his cave, he usually swims in the water column with the other fish but hasn't really left his area since the whole lip thing.

Anyway should I be worried? It seems like more of an injury then a disease. Anyone else have this problem?

Maybe it’s a kardashian jawfish, got lip fillers. He might have irritated his mouth rebuilding his cave. Give it a day or so, keep an eye on him and as long as it doesn’t look infected it should go back to normal.

 

[Stuartmercer]

His jaw could just be tired after working on it all day. idk just a suggestion. So just give him a while to relax. fish need beauty days too ya know.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hyperextension does happen to fish - there is a small bone at the top of the jaw that connects to the skull. That can become overextended through trauma, and then the jaw sticks open. If the fish continues to feed normally, I wouldn't do anything, as this issue sometimes goes away on its own. I have tried to manipulate the bone back into place when this happened to a small seabass that I had - it helped, but I would not recommend handling a jawfish unless it isn't feeding, and then you might want to resort to that.

Jay

 

[Steffnap]

Update: as of this morning he looks totally fine and back to normal. Thanks for the responses everyone!

 

[WVNed]

I have never had this happen on a marine fish but on freshwater cichlids I would catch the fish and take a wooden toothpick, align it square with the corners of the jaw and then press gently inward on the joint so the mouth closed some and resumed normal shape. Then I kept the fish in the dark for several days to keep it quiet. It helped some of them.