Jawfish personality traits

[zeniko2]

I've had a pretty weird experience with my jawfish - it freaks out when the moon lights are off. It's literally trying to jump out of the tank, so I've had to keep them on to keep it calm. Anyone else have a jawfish with a fear of the dark?

[finleydive]

It might not be that it doesn't like the dark, maybe it's the shock from lights on to off that's causing the issue. I had a similar problem with my wrasse, it would try to jump out when I turned the lights off, so now I switch the moonlights on before turning the main lights off and it's made a big difference.

[zeniko2]

My tank is in the bedroom, and I've got some dim moonlights that stay on all night. We had a powercut the other night, and within minutes he was making a break for it. I covered the tank with a net and left him for a bit, but he just wouldn't calm down, so I ended up grabbing a torch and shining it at his burrow. It took about 10 minutes, but eventually he settled back in and stayed put for the rest of the night with the torch on.

[finleydive]

Was it a one-off with the power cut or has it happened before that you know of

[zeniko2]

It's happened before, actually, but I thought it might've just been a coincidence that he stopped jumping after we got the blue lights - I mean, he was settling in and had a more permanent burrow by then too. But after the power cut, I'm pretty convinced it's the darkness that's the issue.

To be honest, I'd love to test it again, but it really stresses him out and I nearly lost him that one time he managed to jump into the turbo floter compartment, so I don't think I'll be trying that again anytime soon.

[finleydive]

I dont think youve got much to worry about. I reckon its just the stress of the lights going off thats causing the issue. Stress can play havoc with them, it can even bring on whitespot, so I wouldnt go repeating the experiment if I were you.