Jawfish eating habits

[drummerboy]

For those of you that own a pearly (yellow) headed jawfish, what will they eat? He doesn't eat the flake food that passes by (I didn't really expect him to), but he does nothing but spit out the brine shrimp too. I can tell he's getting really hungry (hasn't eaten since I've had him for about a week) because he's going a pretty long way from his hole looking for food. Every time he gets a piece of brine shrimp he spits it out, and then darts back into his hole and comes out with a mouthful of sand and spits it everywhere, he's done this everytime he gets something in his mouth (it's pretty funny to watch). If anyone can tell me what they feed theirs though, I would appreciate it, because I really like this fish and I don't want to starve him.

 

[beth]

In nature, gobies feed on copepods for the most part. Do you have live substrate? This is basically where they get their food from.
In the presense of other predatory fish, gobies may have a hard time feeding in a community tank. Even if no other fish is bothering them, instinctively they are skiddish and could starve rather than face competing for food. They will accept other foods besides copepods. Perhaps try finely chopped [or pureed seafood and offering the food directly to the gobie via a sringe injected close to him...feeding your other fish in the process so that they will not come after the food you are shooting at the gobie. Froozen brine in itself is not an adequate diet for a gobie.
I actually sringe-fed a gobie I had. It got to the point that he knew when I was coming and actually ate the food from the mouth of the syringe.

 

[drummerboy]

Thank you for the help, I'll try to get him some more varied food today. If they enjoy copeds then he should be pretty happy though, because I just added a live rock that was full of them, and my sand bed was literally moving the other day becuase there were so many of them crawling around. Is that maybe why he keeps picking up sand and spitting it out, is that how the get the copeds out of the sand?
And your right, he won't eat anything once it's touched the ground, but where he made his home is in the worst spot to have things float by. He made it on the side of the tank where there is a rock wall all the way up and it's less than an inch from the glass (he's a small jawfish) Nothing ever makes it thought that spot though, it's kind of a dead spot and no matter how I rearrange my power heads I can't seem to get a current through there.