Opistognathus aurifrons

Opistognathus aurifrons, commonly known as the Yellowhead jawfish or Jack-in-the-box, is a small jawfish with great personality. Their bodyshape is like a cross between a blenny and a Pseudochromis but with a larger head. Their base colour is white but with a bit of a pastel shimmer on it, ranging from purplish to greenish-blue and really depending upon the light. More blue light will make it look more blue, etc. Their head with large jaw is yellow and is really build for excavating!

And excavating they do! They fill their mouth with more sand than you can imagine and throw it out just outside their burrow. Although fine sand should make up the majority of the substrate, make sure to mix in different sizes of coral sand/rubble and larger pieces like broken ceramic pots or tridacna clams (to keep it natural). This will make building a burrow much easier for them. In the beginning these fish may be very shy/skittish and won't really leave their burrow, so make sure they do feed enough, or they may become thin very fast. Once settled they'll be always sticking their head out of their burrow and we promise their personality will soon attract your daily attention!

These fish are usually not agressive at all. Only when a fish comes too close to the burrow they might chase it away. Do keep in mind they're jumpers and if placed in an open tank a net cover is best used. They can be kept alone or as a pair and in a pair even breeding can be observed in a well maintained tank. They are carnivores and feed mainly on zooplankton when small. They can best be fed with live and frozen food like copepods, artemia and small gammarus, but usually will learn to feed on high quality flakes and pellets as well. As they grow larger, larger food can be given, although they’ve no problem sifting small food particles from the sand.