Jawfish Help!

[Hungriee]

For all the jawfish owners, how do you make your jawfish stop digging holes into the sandbed?

I own a blue spot jawfish he settled down in his home for a bit which he digged a huge hole underneath a rock and pulled most rubble in the tank to build his fort where he peaks out. Recently he ditched his home and started digging a new hole, this time piling up sand onto my corals. I'm getting fustrated at him as its startign to stress out my corals from my zoas getting sand piled up and my softies that were all happy now are all closed. I tried to pack the holes up with small rocks but he was able to pick it up and dig his way through.

Worst part is I found my GSPs piled up with sand, my zoa colonies underneath my sandbed and my clove polyps all closed. My green toadstool was splashed with sand all night so it looks stressed and my frogspawn thats nearby is stressed since sand keeps blowing at it when the jawfish picks up loads of sand in its mouth.

This monster is causing chaos in my tank.

 

[JHOV2324]

haha..u spank it

 

[DevIouS]

How to make it stop?!??!!?!

That's what they do:tired:

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

You can't. It is an inerrant trait of their species.

 

[inkblue]

iF you remoVe the sand, then it will stop

 

[finksmart]

Then it will probably die. It's the building block of the fish's apartment.

iF you remoVe the sand, then it will stop

 

[latino277]

If you don't like the digging.... chuck'em.......

 

[JHOV2324]

I usually yell at my fish when they do stuff i dont like...sometimes it works..sometimes it doesnt....

 

[SIReefer]

Thats what they do..... I have a pair of YHJ and just raised my corals up from the sandbed onto the rocks. I also have 2 engineer gobies that redesign the tanks landscape every other day. No corals on the bottom now.

 

[ming]

That's like asking how to make a fish stop pooping because it makes my water dirty

 

[chanman]

try to build pvc tunnel under the sand bed
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=172053

really cheap stuff

 

[aznt1217]

Well the main reason your jawfish is doing it is because he hasn't found a secure location in the tank yet and doesn't feel "safe".... silly fish.

Anyway, if you don't want to do the PVC thing you can do it the natural way. Just put a rock somewhere with a bunch of rubble or crushed coral around the area. Make sure it's a location with a crevice so the jawfish can enter and exit easily.

Mine found an area under a dead sps coral and made that his home and has stayed there since.

 

[Hungriee]

In the past it used a buttonp olyp colony as his door to his dugged hole but now has sealed that hole up and moved to theo ther side of teh tank where it started to dig a new hole (this hole is bigger) and has caused sand dunes to cover my corals. its fine to move around but not piling up sand on my corals GRRRR. I do love this fish though.

Love is Hate.. HEHE

 

[ming]

going with what aznt1217 said, look at where its digging, and you should use a large flat rock and try bury it at an angle at that location, while using another rock to keep it up even if the sand is removed from under it. Then bury everything back in sand and level the sand out. Much better if your sand is like 5" deep or so. It will likely come back to that spot and start digging, find that rock and dig under it. It'll stay there because the rock gives it a large den and that other rock helps to keep his den from collapsing makes his home that much better, he wont likely move, but instead he will just rearrange the rocks for his entrance hole to be exactly his size body. After his home is established, he will only look for large crush corals in the daytime to surround his entrance, and use these larger crush corals to close his hole at night

 

[James983]

You cant stop a Jawfish from digging holes in the sandbed. Oh, and you cant stop them from jumping either. Make sure you tank i well covered. I could never keep them from jumping out, so I gave up.

 

[inkblue]

giVe it to mE i wont mind it digginG my sand

 

[caad3]

sell him.... I have one and everyday he changes location. That's what they do, your best bet is to unload him to somebody who wouldn't mind the digging.

 

[inkblue]

maYbe he trying to escaPe

 

[Hungriee]

going with what aznt1217 said, look at where its digging, and you should use a large flat rock and try bury it at an angle at that location, while using another rock to keep it up even if the sand is removed from under it. Then bury everything back in sand and level the sand out. Much better if your sand is like 5" deep or so. It will likely come back to that spot and start digging, find that rock and dig under it. It'll stay there because the rock gives it a large den and that other rock helps to keep his den from collapsing makes his home that much better, he wont likely move, but instead he will just rearrange the rocks for his entrance hole to be exactly his size body. After his home is established, he will only look for large crush corals in the daytime to surround his entrance, and use these larger crush corals to close his hole at night

thx Ming. I'm going to give this a shot. I like the fish alot and wont want to give up on him.

 

[pak]

I got the same problem with the same fish ,i just got to take it out sand put it into my sump.