Yellow headed jawfish feeding tricks?

Muttley000 · Dec 28, 2018

Ive had this guy for several weeks. He is now in a 65 attached to my 500 gallon multitank system with some corals (zoas, Cyphastrea, a couple other encrust era and an emerald Duncan colony), several small Bta, a pair of clowns, and a single PJ Cardinal. There is too much rock in the tank and he took up residence in a back corner where I can't see him. Tonight I notice he is building a new cave on the side. I am not seeing him eat succesfully and am getting worried. I feed a lot of frozen, maybe some is getting to him and I can't see it but it can't be much. He looks fine so far still. So what do you all suggest? Side note any suggestions for more fish in the tank once I'm feeling better about him?

mort · Dec 29, 2018

Any chance you can angle a powerhead so it creates a current that moves the food over the jaw fishes home. I find a nice laminar current takes the food over the burrow so the jaw can eat it. The current doesn't need to be that strong and part of the key is to only add a couple of mysis or similar at a time, so it has time to take in the food slowly before its all gone. They can also sometimes be shy to begin with so standing a fair distance back after each food introduction might help.

As for tank mates, nice slow feeders work well so a mandarin or scooter dragonet might work well. You could also look at bluest ripe pipefish as they are pretty easy to care for in quiet tanks. Or you could go for more normal reef species like royal gramma, tailspot blenny, perhaps one of the flasher wrasse species for movement.

joec · Dec 29, 2018

mort said:
Any chance you can angle a powerhead so it creates a current that moves the food over the jaw fishes home. I find a nice laminar current takes the food over the burrow so the jaw can eat it. The current doesn't need to be that strong and part of the key is to only add a couple of mysis or similar at a time, so it has time to take in the food slowly before its all gone. They can also sometimes be shy to begin with so standing a fair distance back after each food introduction might help.

As for tank mates, nice slow feeders work well so a mandarin or scooter dragonet might work well. You could also look at bluest ripe pipefish as they are pretty easy to care for in quiet tanks. Or you could go for more normal reef species like royal gramma, tailspot blenny, perhaps one of the flasher wrasse species for movement.

Try live live black worms if you can get them an they love chopped table shrimp.

Yellowheads jaw fish often come loaded with internal parasites and and worms. I've lost two who dad this. From now on, I'm going to treat every one prophyalactically with GC/focus in food. The first symptom I noticed with the two I lost was not eating, and then stringy white poop.