breeding yellowheaded jawfish?

[fishworm]

I bought a couple yellowheaded jawfish last week. after I put them in the tank they both started building seperate burrows under the live rock.

when I got back home last night, I only saw one burrow and I figured that one of them might have jumped or died. kinda bummed me out because I love jawfish. but when I fed them today, I noticed that both of them were sharing the same burrow. one is doing the digging, and one kinda hides a little further in the hole. could I possibly have lucked out and found a pair? have they been bread in the aquarium successfully? I seem to recall that they are mouthbrooders.


any tips y'all can give on maybe getting these guys to spawn if I do have a male and a female?

[philter4]

I have kept and bred yellow heads, they are easy to sex if you have more then one to sex, the males head is bulkier. If you have both the same sex, or they are young it may not be that apparent, but in older fish it is very big difference.

They are mouth brooders, and the male makes good parent, taking good care of the eggs. The males (at least mine) will still feed when holding, they put the eggs in the burrow feed then go back in and pick them up again. They provide no parental care of the young and they young are larval so they are very difficult to raise, Mine lay every full moon, It takes about 10 days to hatch in my tanks at room temp, so it may take less or more time depending on your tank conditions. I've never tried to raise the young, I don't have the time or room to be successful and mine always release at night.

One interesting thing I've kept 4 atlantic sp and blue spots from pacific and only the yellow heads have ever spawned, even though I've had both sexes of the others. My favorites are swallowtails from deep water, they males have a huge head compared to the female, and a giant sailfin dorsal compared to the females as well.

[FMarini]

Do a search in the fish breeding forum.
A recent post from Martin Moe on raising YHjawfish fry.
As you noted they are mouthbrooders, and breed frequently in the home aquarium, but the fry are incredibly tiny. Martin was successful at raising them thou. He harvested wild-caught plankton and used the field plankton as first foods. He even sold the fry on ebay
Anyway, search please
frank