Jawfish

[clsund]

Hi Henry,

I was just reading your great article on Jawfish and wondered about QT for these fish. what do you recommend? QT or not? Any prophylactic measures such as copper? I've also read here on RC that these fish tend to come down with some sort of disease (I forget what its name was now). Any way to ward this off? Thanks.

[hcs3]

hi clsund,

in general i do not recommend a QT only because many people setup a bare minimum environment for a q-tank. less than ideal conditions should never be acceptable.

however, if you are willing to invest the time and money to make your q-tank a quality living environment, by all means please do so. for jawfish you should plan to use several PVC pipes as hiding places.

i never recommend treating with broad antibiotics for an unknown illness. if you are going to QT the fish, use it as a period of adjustment and only medically treat the fish once an illness is detected and a positve ID can be made.

i have not heard of the yellow-headed jawfish becoming regularly ill. the blue-spot jaws were coming in ill, however, for quite a period of time. i've been out of the loop for a while now, so i can't say for positive if that situation was ever alleviated or not. if you've been reading it on the RC forums recently you are likely more current with the information than myself.

HTH

henry

[clsund]

Hi Henry,

thanks for the reply. Yes, there seemed to be an epidemic among blue spot a while back last year, though I recently haven't heard anything. But like you, I've been kind of out of the loop and I haven't seen any blue spots lately at the lfs.

when you say a quality living environment, what do you mean? are you suggesting sand or will the pvc pipes be enough? would you mind enumerating for me the set up you would create for QTing the jawfish. Thanks.

cephas

[hcs3]

hi clsund,

sand would be preferable, but remember that you will be unable to (or at least not successfully) treat with certain medications in an aquarium containing a calcium based substrate or decorations. Copper, for example, will leach into the rockwork and thus create a difficult time for you to raise the levels.

if you are expecting to have to medically treat the fish, it would likely be less stressful to place them into a hospital tank right away instead of worrying about moving the fish once it confirmed ill.

The PVC pieces should work as a suitable substitute as a hiding place for the jawfish. just scatter them along the bottom of the aquarium and it'll surely dive into one. perhaps glue some pvc pieces together to get a few tubes more upright and less horizontal.

other concerns would be water quality. all to often Q-tanks are setup as a spur of the moment type thing and thus water quality suffers. setting up the tank for long-term care and maintenance is the better option. you don't want a lot of people looking in and scaring the newcomer/ill fish, plus it won't be pretty to look at, so bury it in a corner of the room or closet.

HTH

henry

[clsund]

Wow, quick reply. Thanks again. I'll keep all this in mind as I wait for new shipments to arrive.